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THE  AUTHOR 


The  Hermetic  Art 


AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 
THE  ART  OF  ALCHEMY 

The  Text  of  the  Hermetic  Sermons,  Entitled, 
"The  Greatest  111  Among  Men  Is  Ignorance  of 
God,"  "That  No  One  of  Existing  Things 
Doth  Perish,"  and  the  Sermon  on  Thought 
and  Sense,  Together  With  the  Esoteric 
Commentary,  Giving  in  Full,  the 
Esoteric  Key  to  These  Three  Great 
Sermons,  The  Official  Interpre- 
tation of  the  Hermetic  Brother- 
hood of  Atlantis,   and  the 
Official  Text  Book  in  the 
H  e  r  m  e  t  i  c  A  r  t . 


By 

DR.  A.  S.  RALEIGH 


The 

HERMETIC  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

3020  Lake  Park  Avenue,  Chicago,  111. 
1919 


COPYRIGHT.  1919, 
BY  THE  HERMETIC  PUBLISHING  CO. 
Copyri^rhted  and  Registered  at  Stationers'  Hail,  London,  England 
(All  Rights  Reserved) 


Typt  Set  by  American  Typesetting  Corporation,  Chicago 

Printed  and  Bound  by  M.  A.  Donohue  &  Co.,  Chicago 


/ 


DEDICATION 

To  that  small  but  select  body  of  students 
of  Alchemy  scattered  throughout  the 
world — who  have  ever  devoted  them- 
selves to  the  Quest  after  the  Absolute, 
and  have  sought  for  the  Philosopher's 
Stone — this  course  of  Lessons  in  the  Her- 
metic Art  is  lovingly  dedicated,  with  the 
hope  that  it  may  in  some  degree  throw 
light  upon  the  subject  of  their  search,  and 
may  to  some  extent  direct  them  in  the  way 
of  the  real  Transmutation. 

THE  AUTHOR. 


CONTENTS. 

Page 

Introductory  Note   7 

The  Greatest  III  Among  Men  Is  Ignorance 

OF  God 

Text   11 

Lesson    1.    The  111  of  Ignorance...   13 

PART  TWO. 


That  No  One  of  Existing  Things  Doth 


Perish  But  Men  in  Error  Speak  of 
Their  Changes  as  Destructions 
AND  AS  Deaths 

Text   39 

Lesson    2.    The  Limitation  of  the  Body.  .  29 

Lesson    3.    Soul  and  Body   43 

Lesson    4.    The  Eternity  of  Matter   55 

Lesson    5.    The  Life  of  Man   63 

PART  THREE. 

On  Thought  and  Sense 


That  the  Beautiful  and  Good  Is  in  Good  and 


Elsewhere  Nowhere 

Text   73 

Lesson    6.    Thought  and  Sense   79 

Lesson    7.    The  Conception  of  Thought.  .  91 

Lesson    8.    The  Kosmic  Course  107 

Lesson  9.  The  Function  of  The  Cosmos.  119 
Lesson  10.    The  Sense-and-Thought  of 

God  129 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 


In  presenting  this  series  of  lessons  on  the  Her- 
metic Art  we  are  continuing  the  series  which 
began  in  Philosophia  Hermetica,  w^hich  continued 
in  Scientific  Hermetica  and  culminated  in  the 
Hermetic  Art,  this  series  of  three  books  being 
intended  as  an  introduction  to  the  study  of 
alchemy.  In  the  Philosophia  Hermetica  we  gave 
an  introduction  to  the  Philosophy  of  Alchemy,  in 
Scientific  Hermetica  we  gave  an  introduction  to 
the  Science  of  Alchemy  and  in  the  Hermetic  Art 
w^e  give  an  introduction  to  the  Art  of  Alchemy. 
All  Hermetic  matters  group  themselves  under 
those  three  heads.  Hermetic  Philosophy,  which 
deals  with  the  speculative  side  of  Hermeticism, 
Hermetic  Science  which  deals  with  the  scientific 
principles  embodied  in  the  Hermetic  teaching  and 
the  Hermetic  Art  which  deals  with  the  practical 
application  of  the  principles  enunciated  in  the 
Hermetic  Philosophy  and  the  Hermetic  Science. 
Physical  alchemy  is  by  the  novice  generally  sup- 
posed to  be  the  summum  bonum  of  Hermeticism, 
while  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  a  very  unimportant 
item  in  the  general  body  of  our  teaching.  The 
basis  of  Hermeticism  as  we  have  it  today  is  to  be 
found  in  the  writing  of  Hermes  Trismegistus.  In 
all  those  waitings  there  is  not  a  single  sermon 
devoted  to  the  discussion  of  practical  alchemy,  and 
yet  there  are  those  so  damnably  ignorant  as  to 
assume  that  Hermeticism  is  primarily  concerned 
w^ith  the  physical  side  of  the  Magnum  Opus.  To 
those  who  hold  this  view  we  can  only  reply  that 
Hermeticism  is  a  complete  philosophy  of  life,  it 
represents  absolute  truth.  It  begins  with  religion, 
it  is  essentially  a  system  of  theology,  it  has  next  its 
metaphysical  side,  closely  connected  with  the  the- 
ological element;  it  is  philosophical,  it  is  also 
metaphysical,  it  has  its  peculiar  psychology.   It  is 

7 


8 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


related  to  the  whole  body  of  the  Kosmos  and  all 
that  proceeds  from  it,  which  of  course  includes 
Alchemy.  But  Alchemy  is  merely  one  of  the  sci- 
ences which  Hermes  Trismegistus  was  very  care- 
ful to  point  out  should  not  be  confounded  with 
philosophy  and  Hermes  announced  himself  to  be  a 
teacher  of  philosophy  primarily.  His  discussion 
of  the  sciences  was  merely  incidental  to  his  work 
of  propounding  philosophical  religion.  The 
Metaphysics  of  Alchemy  always  precedes  the 
Physics  of  Alchemy  even  when  we  come  to  dis- 
cuss the  alchemical  aspect  of  the  Hermetic  Art. 
Therefore  in  the  succeeding  course  of  lessons 
which  will  immediately  follow  these  we  propose 
to  discuss  the  Philosophy  of  Alchemy,  this  will  be 
followed  by  a  course  in  the  Science  of  Alchemy, 
this  in  turn  by  one  in  the  Speculative  Art  of 
Alchemy  and  the  seventh  volume  of  the  series  will 
be  the  first  to  deal  with  the  Practical  Art  of 
Alchemy. 

It  may  be  said  that  one  cannot  consummate 
Practical  Alchemy  until  one  has  first  understood 
Kosmical  Alchemy, — that  is  to  say  the  Alchemy 
which  is  perpetually  going  on  in  Kosmos.  After 
this  he  must  understand  Mental  Alchemy,  or  the 
Alchemy  operating  within  the  mind  through 
which  thoughts  are  generated  and  through  which 
thought  is  transmuted,  then  he  must  understand 
the  Alchemy  of  the  soul  and  after  these  the 
Alchemy  of  the  physical  body.  Furthermore  he 
must  have  accomplished  the  Alchemy  of  his  own 
mind,  soul  and  body  before  he  can  accomplish  the 
Physical  Alchemy  which  is  related  to  the  trans- 
mutation of  metals;  therefore  it  is  necessary  to 
understand  the  Metaphysics  of  Alchemy  before 
one  attempts  to  concentrate  his  attention  on  the 
physical  aspect  of  practical  alchemy. 

This  work  is  not  only  to  be  viewed  in  the  sense 
of  a  treatise  on  the  Hermetic  Art  and  an  intro- 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


9 


duction  to  the  Philosophy  of  Alchemy,  it  is  in  fact 
the  official  text  book  of  the  Hermetic  Brotherhood 
on  that  subject.  There  have  been  a  great  many 
works  on  Alchemy  written  by  those  who  knew 
absolutely  nothing  of  what  they  were  talking 
about,  but  in  our  Hermetic  Art  we  are  giving  you 
the  official  authorized  text  book  of  the  Brother- 
hood dealing  with  the  Hermetic  Art,  and  like- 
wise their  official  authorized  introduction  to  the 
study  of  the  Philosophy  of  Alchemy,  but  in  addi- 
tion to  this  the  book  will  also  be  found  to  contain 
the  text  of  three  of  the  sermons  of  Hermes  Tris- 
megistus  together  with  the  official  commentary 
unfolding  their  Esoteric  meaning.  These  ser- 
mons are  the  ones  entitled,  "The  Greatest  111 
Among  Men  Is  Ignorance  of  God,  That  no  one  of 
existing  things  doth  perish  but  men  in  error  speak 
of  their  changes  as  destructions  and  as  deaths,  and 
the  sermon  on  Thought  and  Sense,  That  the  beau- 
tiful and  the  good  is  in  God  only  and  elsewhere 
nowhere."  Those  who  do  not  desire  to  study  the 
Hermetic  Art  or  to  enter  into  the  study  of  Alchemy 
will  nevertheless  find  the  lessons  interesting  as 
they  constitute  the  official  and  authoritative  com- 
mentary on  these  three  sermons.  One  should  not 
attempt  to  read  the  future  books  on  Alchemy  with- 
out thoroughly  mastering  the  contents  of  Philo- 
sophia  Hermetica,  Scientific  Hermetica  and  the 
Hermetic  Art.  We  present  this  effort  to  our  read- 
ers and  friends  with  the  hope  that  it  may  interest 
them  to  look  more  deeply  into  the  rich  mine  of 
occult,  mystic  and  philosophical  lore  which  is  con- 
tained in  the  writings  of  Thrice  Greatest  Hermes. 
In  giving  forth  this  book  we  feel  that  we  have  dis- 
charged an  obligation  which  rested  upon  us  to  give 
to  the  vv^orld  the  absolute  truth  in  regard  to  the 
three  heads  of  Hermetic  teaching,  Philosophia 
Hermetica,  Scientific  Hermetica  and  the  Hermetic 
Art.    In  doing  this  we  have  placed  all  without 


10 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


excuse,  who  fall  for  the  mediocre  unofficial  pub- 
lications that  are  put  forth  from  time  to  time  by 
novices  who  know  absolutely  nothing  of  what 
they  are  writing.  By  giving  this  official  informa- 
tion we  have  provided  the  world  with  the  standard 
text  books  of  the  three  heads  of  Hermetic  knowl- 
edge. It  is  to  be  hoped  that  they  will  make  good 
use  of  them,  at  any  rate  they  are  provided  with 
accurate  information  in  regard  to  the  subject. 

With  the  publication  of  this  volume  we  will 
have  provided  students  with  a  complete  introduc- 
tion to  all  departments  of  the  Hermetic  Gnosis. 
This  was  the  work  which  we  assigned  ourselves  in 
the  beginning  and  having  accomplished  the  task 
we  have  now  equipped  the  reader  with  all  the 
preliminary  instructions  which  he  requires  for 
boldly  entering  into  the  study  of  alchemy.  It  is 
to  be  trusted  that  those  who  have  understood  our 
teaching  will  have  the  boldness  to  go  into  this  field 
of  Creative  work, 

A.  S.  RALEIGH. 


Columbus,  Ohio,  July  1,  1916. 


The  Hermetic  Art 


The  Greatest  El  Among  Men  Is  Ignorance  of  God 

TEXT 

Parthey  (G.),  Hermetic  Trismegisti  Poe- 

mander  (Berlin,  1854),  54-55. 
Patrizzi  (F.),  Nova  de  Univerns  Philoso- 

phia  (Venice,  1593),  18a. 
Mead  (G,  R.  S.),  Thrice  Greatest  Hermes 

(London,  1906),  Corpus  Hermeticum 

VII  (VIII). 

1.  Whither  stumble  ye,  sots,  who  have 
sopped  up  the  wine  of  ignorance  unmixed, 
and  can  so  far  not  carry  it  that  ye  already 
even  spew  it  forth? 

Stay  ye,  be  sober,  gaze  upwards  with  the 
[true]  eyes  of  the  heart!  And  if  ye  cannot 
all,  yet  ye  at  least  who  can! 

For  that  the  ill  of  ignorance  doth  pour  o'er 
all  the  earth  and  overwhelm  the  soul  that's 
battened  down  within  the  body,  preventing 
it  from  fetching  port  within  Salvation's  har- 
bours. 

2.  Be  then  not  carried  off  by  the  fierce 
flood,  but  using  the  shore-current,  ye  who 
can,  make  for  Salvation's  port,  and,  har- 
bouring there,  seek  ye  for  one  to  take  you  by 
the  hand  and  lead  you  unto,  Gnosis'  gates. 

n 


12 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


Where  shines  clear  Light,  of  every  dark- 
ness clean;  where  not  a  single  soul  is  drunk, 
but  sober  all  they  gaze  with  their  heart's 
eyes  on  Him  who  willeth  to  be  seen. 

No  ear  can  hear  Him,  nor  can  eye  see 
Him,  nor  tongue  speak  of  Him,  but  [only] 
mind  and  heart. 

But  first  thou  must  tear  off  from  thee  the 
cloak  which  thou  dost  wear, — the  web  of 
ignorance,  the  ground  of  bad,  corruption's 
chain,  the  carapace  of  darkness,  the  living 
death,  sensation's  corpse,  the  tomb  thou  car- 
riest  with  thee,  the  robber  in  thy  house,  who 
through  the  things  he  loveth,  hateth  thee, 
and  through  the  things  he  hateth,  bears  thee 
malice. 

3.  Such  is  the  hateful  cloak  thou  wear- 
est, — that  throttles  thee  [and  holds  thee] 
down  to  it,  in  order  that  thou  may 'st  not 
gaze  above,  and,  having  seen  the  Beauty  of 
the  Truth,  and  Good  that  dwells  therein, 
detest  the  bad  of  it;  having  found  out  the 
plot  that  it  hath  schemed  against  thee,  by 
making  void  of  sense  those  seeming  things 
which  men  think  senses. 

For  that  it  hath  with  mass  of  matter 
blocked  them  up  and  crammed  them  full  of 
loathsome  lust,  so  that  thou  may'st  not  hear 
about  the  things  that  thou  should'st  hear, 
nor  see  the  things  that  thou  should'st  see. 


LESSON  I 


The  111  of  Ignorance 

1.  Wither  stumble  ye,  sots,  who  have 
sopped  up  the  wine  of  ignorance  unmixed, 
and  can  so  far  not  carry  it  that  ye  already 
even  spew  it  forth? 

Stay  ye,  be  sober,  gaze  upwards  with  the 
[true]  eyes  of  the  heart!  And  if  ye  cannot 
all,  yet  ye  at  least  who  can ! 

For  that  the  ill  of  ignorance  doth  pour 
o'er  all  the  earth  and  overwhelm  the  soul 
that's  battened  down  within  the  body,  pre- 
venting it  from  fetching  port  within  Salva- 
tion's harbors. 

This  sermon  is  in  the  nature  of  an  impassioned 
appeal  to  the  people  to  refrain  from  the  drunken- 
ness of  ignorance  and  turn  their  attention  to  the 
truth.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  a  preaching  an  evan- 
gelical preachment  of  the  beauty  of  Gnosis  ver- 
sus the  ugliness  and  degradation  of  the  life  of  the 
senses.  In  order  to  make  the  lesson  the  more 
impressive  he  compares  the  people  to  sots  who  are 
continually  in  a  state  of  intoxication,  who  stumble 
through  life  dependent  entirely  on  the  testimony 
of  their  senses  for  guidance.  It  is  very  graphically 
expressed.  He  begins  by  inquiring  Whither  stum- 
ble ye?  In  other  words,  they  are  described  as 
stumbling  through  life  in  a  state  of  intoxication. 
He  terms  them  sots,  and  asserts  they  have  sopped 
up  the  wine  of  ignorance  unmixed.  Ignorance  is 
here  compared  to  a  steady  diet  of  wine,  because 
the  effect  of  ignorance  is  to  produce  a  state  of 
mental  and  spiritual  intoxication  very  similar  to 

13 


14 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


the  state  of  intoxication  produced  by  over-indul- 
gence in  wine.  Ignorance  is  thus  viewed  as  a  posi- 
tive intoxicant;  a  poison  having  the  effect  of  cloud- 
ing the  mind  so  that  it  is  incapable  of  thinking 
clearly.  He  states  that  this  wine  of  ignorance  is 
unmixed.  That  is  to  say  there  is  not  a  j)article  of 
truth  in  what  they  are  imbibing.  There  being  no 
mixture  of  truth  in  the  wine  of  ignorance  their 
souls  are  entirely  dominated  by  the  intoxication 
growing  out  of  this  unmixed  wine  of  ignorance. 
He  further  says  that  they  can  so  far  not  carry  it, 
that  they  already  even  spew  it  forth.  In  other 
words  the  mind,  saturated  by  the  wine  of  ignorance 
is  incapable  of  retaining  its  own  supply  of  ignor- 
ance but  spews  it  forth  similar  to  the  drunkard 
spewing  forth  the  overabundance  of  wine  which 
he  has  taken.  By  this  he  means  that  the  ignorance 
intoxicated  man  gives  expression  to  no  thought, 
word  or  deed  but  what  springs  directly  from 
ignorance.  In  other  words,  no  good,  true  or 
logical  statement  can  ever  by  any  possibility 
emanate  from  the  consciousness  of  one  intoxicated 
by  ignorance.  His  statements  will  all  be  untrue, 
his  deeds  will  all  be  evil,  his  thoughts  will  all  be 
irrational.  He  leads  a  life  expressive  of  pure  and 
unadulterated  ignorance,  because  all  his  thinking 
has  been  inspired  by  ignorance.  We  must  under- 
stand this  matter  in  its  true  light;  that  is  to  say, 
we  must  get  a  true  understanding  of  his  usage  of 
the  term  ignorance. 

Hermes,  being  a  metaphysician  and  a  tran- 
scendentalist,  takes  the  common  position  of  all  such 
philosophers,  that  the  senses  always  lead  one 
astray;  that  our  facts  are  all  of  them  absolutely 
untrue;  that  the  testimony  of  the  senses  is  invari- 
ably misleading;  consequently  any  view  that 
springs  from  the  testimony  of  the  senses  will  be 
in  the  very  nature  of  things  misleading.  As  long 
as  one's  thinking  is  in  terms  of  sense  perception  he 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


15 


will  gain  an  erroneous  view  of  the  universe,  of  life, 
of  experience,  of  the  whole  cosmogony  of  being. 
This  false  view  of  the  nature  of  things  is  what  he 
terms  ignorance.  It  is  viewed  as  a  fK>sitive  force 
because  of  the  positive  effect  which  it  has  upon  the 
soul.  So  long  as  one's  thinking  is  in  terms  of  the 
senses,  that  is,  so  long  as  this  ignorance  or  illusion 
binds  ones  thinking,  he  will  be  in  a  state  of  intoxi- 
cation, seeing  that  it  will  be  utterly  impossible  for 
him  ever  to  think  correctly,  that  is  in  accordance 
with  the  truth;  because  this  ignorance  induced  by 
the  senses,  this  false  mental  attitude,  precludes  the 
possibility  of  logical,  rational  thinking  and  one  is 
intoxicated  by  it.  His  mind  is  deceived  by  the 
false  images  which  his  senses  present  to  it.  So 
that  the  mind,  being  clouded  and  befuddled  in  this 
way,  causes  him  to  speak  and  act  in  a  false  and 
illogical  manner.  Therefore  the  question  is, 
Whither  stumble  ye?  In  other  words,  in  what 
direction  is  your  drunken  stumbling  leading  you? 
It  is  very  much  in  the  nature  of  a  rebuke  to  a 
drunkard  when  we  put  it  in  the  form  of  a  ques- 
tion and  ask  him  where  this  continual  drunkenness 
is  going  to  lead  him.  It  is  as  though  to  ask  the 
drunkard  where  he  expected  to  get  off  at  if  he 
kept  it  up.  It  is  this  form  of  interrogative  rebuke 
that  is  administered.  The  question  is,  what  will 
be  the  goal  of  anyone  who  continues  in  this  state 
of  intoxication,  being  continually  made  drunk  by 
ignorance  without  receiving  the  light  of  truth. 

Next  he  admonishes  them  to  stay,  to  be  sober, 
to  gaze  upwards  with  the  true  eyes  of  the  heart. 
Having  indicated  the  evil  tendency  of  their  drunk- 
enness, which  simply  means  a  state  of  conscious- 
ness induced  by  the  testimony  of  the  senses,  he  next 
admonishes  them  to  halt  in  this  course  of  degen- 
eracy, to  stop  and  consider,  to  reckon  w4th  them- 
selves. He  admonishes  them  to  be  sober.  Now  as 
drunkenness  is  a  condition  resulting  from  the  sop- 


16 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


ping  up  of  the  wine  of  ignorance  sobriety  of  course 
can  consist  only  in  abstaining  from  imbibing  the 
wine  of  ignorance.  The  wine  of  ignorance  being 
the  term  used  to  indicate  that  state  of  mind  grow- 
ing out  of  the  testimony  of  the  senses,  it  follows 
that  sobriety  can  only  mean  the  discarding  or 
rejection  of  the  testimony  of  the  senses  and  a  state 
of  consciousness  growing  out  of  the  exercise  of  the 
Pure  Reason  independent  of  all  sense  perception. 
This  Pure  Reason  will  therefore  enlighten  the 
understanding,  purging  out  the  mind  of  ignor- 
ance induced  by  the  testimony  of  the  senses,  and 
hence  will  develop  a  balanced  rational  state  of 
mind  which  he  describes  as  sober.  Next  he  admon- 
ishes them  to  gaze  upwards  with  the  true  eyes  of 
the  heart.  In  other  words,  he  is  clearly  enunciat- 
ing the  doctrine  of  the  heart  versus  the  doctrine  of 
the  eyes.  The  heart  is  used  here  with  reference  to 
the  devotional  side  of  ones  being  working  in  con- 
junction with  the  Reason,  the  Gnostic  heart  in 
other  words.  The  eyes  of  the  heart  refer  to  the 
soul  sense,  to  that  sense  which  is  not  discernible 
through  the  physical  senses  but  is  rather  a  faculty 
of  the  soul ;  something  closely  united  to  intuition 
but  yet  somewhat  different.  And  then  admonishes 
them  to  gaze  upward,  that  this  soul  sense  can, 
through  this,  come  in  contact  with  reality  instead 
of  the  illusion  of  the  senses.  This  attitude  of  con- 
tact with  reality  through  the  testimony  of  the  Rea- 
son, the  eyes  of  the  heart,  produces  the  sober  mind 
rather  than  the  intoxication  of  ignorance,  and  in 
this  way  ignorance  is  purged  out  of  the  soul. 
Realizing  that  it  is  impossible  for  all  mankind  to 
heed  his  advice,  that  some  souls  are  so  undeveloped 
that  they  can  only  feed  upon  ignorance,  and  in 
fact  that  ignorance  gives  them  an  opportunity  for 
evolution  which  they  would  not  otherwise  have, 
seeing  that  they  can  thrive  on  no  other  diet,  he  does 
not  try  to  persuade  all  to  abstain  from  ignorance, 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


17 


and  the  drunkenness  which  it  induces,  but  calls 
upon  all  who  have  the  capacity  to  do  this,  all  who 
are  able  to  at  least  follow  his  advice  and  look 
upwards.  Hence  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the 
Hermetic  message  is  not  directed  to  the  multitude 
but  rather  to  those  scattered  within  the  multitude 
w^ho  are  capable  of  grasping  a  thought  of  the 
higher  life. 

For  that  the  ill  of  ignorance  doth  pour 
o'er  all  the  earth  and  overwhelm  the  soul 
that's  battened  down  within  the  body,  pre- 
venting it  from  fetching  port  within  Salva- 
tion's harbors. 

The  ill  of  ignorance  relates  to  the  consequences 
or  effects  of  ignorance,  the  evil  growing  out  of  it, 
and  also  to  ignorance  itself  as  an  ill.  It  is  stated 
that  this  pours  o'er  all  the  earth.  In  other  words, 
there  is  nothing  in  the  sensible  w^orld  but  what  con- 
tributes to  the  development  of  this  ill  of  ignorance. 
In  other  words,  all  objects  of  the  senses  engender 
sensations  which  in  turn  produce  ignorance  in  the 
human  mind.  Therefore  the  earth  is  completely 
covered  wdth  this  ill  of  ignorance  inasmuch  as  all 
objects  in  the  world  directly  induce  ignorance  in 
the  human  consciousness.  It  overwhelms  the  soul 
that's  battened  down  within  the  body.  That  is  to 
say  all  souls  resident  in  the  body,  all  incarnate 
souls,  are  influenced  by  this  ill  of  ignorance  because 
their  corporeal  senses  are  controlled  and  domi- 
nated by  the  objects  of  sense.  These  senses  cause 
distorted  images  of  those  objects  to  be  reflected  in 
the  mind  in  terms  of  corresponding  mental  impres- 
sions. Therefore  all  souls  resident  w^ithin  the  body 
are  influenced  by  the  testimony  of  the  senses  so  that 
the  soul  is  ovenvhelmed  by  this  force  of  ignorance, 
is  controlled  by  it,  and  is  unable  to  express  itself 
against  this  force  of  the  obvious.    It  is  this  over- 


18 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


whelming  of  the  soul  by  ignorance  that  prevents 
it  from  fetching  port  within  Salvation^s  harbors. 
In  other  words,  the  soul  is  described  as  a  vessel  at 
sea.  Tossed  about  upon  the  waves  of  ignorance 
Salvation  is  the  harbor  to  which  it  is  bound,  but 
it  is  unable  to  fetch  port  within  the  harbors  of  Sal- 
vation because  it  is  overwhelmed  by  ignorance 
due  to  its  residence  in  the  body.  He  therefore 
very  clearly  indicates  what  he  means  by  salvation. 
Inasmuch  as  ignorance  induced  by  sense  percep- 
tion is  that  which  keeps  the  soul  from  reaching  sal- 
vation, it  follows  that  salvation  is  the  state  result- 
ing from  a  repudiation  of  the  testimony  of  the 
senses.  In  other  words,  in  order  to  reach  Salvation 
the  soul  must  through  Reason  rise  above  the  testi- 
mony of  the  senses,  must  break  away  from  the  ideal 
world  of  sense  induced  thought  and  reach  a  con- 
sciousness of  reality.  In  other  words.  Salvation  is 
the  state  of  mind  growing  out  of  knowledge  of  the 
truth  rather  than  the  facts  indicated  by  the  senses. 
So  long,  therefore,  as  anyone  takes  the  testimony 
of  his  senses  seriously,  or  gives  credit  to  the 
thoughts  induced  by  the  senses  Salvation  is  impos- 
sible. It  therefore  follows  that  Salvation  is  a  state 
of  consciousness  directly  the  reverse  of  the  ordi- 
nary human  consciousness,  the  consciousness  grow- 
ing out  of  the  testimony  of  the  senses.  It  is  an 
ideal  consciousness  rather  than  a  sensible  con- 
sciousness, or  a  sensuous  consciousness,  that  is 
termed  Salvation.  The  whole  preaching  of  our 
sermon  is  an  exhortation  to  strive  to  overcome  the 
testimony  of  the  senses,  though  abiding  within  the 
body,  and  reach  the  pure  plane  of  truth. 

2.  Be  then  not  carried  off  by  the  fierce 
flood,  but  using  the  shore-current,  ye  who 
can,  make  for  Salvation's  port,  and,  harbor- 
ing there,  seek  ye  for  one  to  take  you  by  the 
hand  and  lead  unto  Gnosis'  gates. 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


19 


Where  shines  clear  light,  of  every  dark- 
ness clean ;  where  not  a  single  soul  is  drunk, 
but  sober  all  they  gaze  with  their  heart's 
eyes  on  Him  who  willeth  to  be  seen. 

Where  no  ear  can  hear  him,  nor  can  eye 
see  him,  nor  tongue  speak  of  him,  but  [only] 
mind  and  heart. 

But  first  thou  must  tear  off  from  thee  the 
cloak  which  thou  dost  wear, — the  web  of 
ignorance,  the  ground  of  bad.  Corruption's 
chain,  the  carapace  of  darkness,  the  living 
death,  sensation's  corpse,  the  tomb  thou  car- 
riest  with  thee,  the  robber  in  thy  house,  who 
through  the  things  he  loveth,  hateth  thee, 
and  through  the  things  he  hateth,  bears  thee 
malice. 

Be  then  not  carried  off  by  the  fierce  flood, 
but  using  the  shore-current,  ye  who  can, 
make  for  Salvation's  port,  and,  harboring 
there,  seek  ye  for  one  to  take  you  by  the  hand 
and  lead  you  into  Gnosis'  gates. 

Here  he  describes  the  force  of  ignorance  as  a 
fierce  flood,  that  is  as  a  swift  flowing  stream,  the 
main  current  of  a  stream,  which  carries  one  out  to 
sea,  as  it  were,  leading  him  entirely  away  from 
the  true  reason  and  consciousness  of  things.  A  cur- 
rent against  which  no  one  can  pull.  Nevertheless 
he  urges  those  to  whom  he  appeals  to  not  be  car- 
ried off  by  this  fierce  flood  but  overcome  it,  and 
he  assures  them  that  it  is  possible  to  do  this  by 
using  the  shore-current.  That  is  to  say,  the  back 
or  up-current  which  is  caused  by  the  swift  flowing 
of  the  current;  the  back  current  being  induced, 
and  which  tends  to  flow  upstream  near  the  shore. 


20 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


The  advice  therefore  is  to  struggle  to  get  out  of 
the  swift  current  and  bring  one's  bark  within  the 
back  or  shore  current,  so  that  one  may  drift  to 
shore.  In  this  way  it  is  possible  to  make  for  Sal- 
vation's port.  The  imagery  here  is  very  graphic, 
and  yet  it  does  not  appear  to  be  so  very  difficult 
to  understand.  He  describes  the  life  of  sense 
induced  thought,  that  is  the  life  naturally  growing 
out  of  one's  mode  of  thinking,  when  that  mode  of 
thinking  is  induced  by  the  testimony  of  the  senses. 
This  mode  of  life  is  likened  to  being  adrift  in  the 
current  of  a  swift  flowing  stream.  Nevertheless 
from  that  there  is  a  shore  current  which  leads  one 
away  from  the  testimony  of  the  senses,  and  this 
shore  current  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
faculty  of  analytical  reasoning.  Using  the  shore 
current  means  nothing  more  nor  less  than  exercis- 
ing ones  faculty  for  analysis, — striving  to  get  back 
of  appearances  and  come  in  contact  with  reality. 
Salvation's  port  is  the  landing  place  from  the  river 
of  ignorance,  hence  it  relates  to  that  stage  of  one's 
consciousness  where  a  basis  for  clear  thinking  has 
been  realized,  where  one  begins  to  develop  a 
philosophical  concept  entirely  independent  of  the 
testimony  of  the  senses.  In  other  words,  Salva- 
tion's port  is  the  metaphysical  concept.  When  one 
has  reached  that  stage  where  he  thinks  from  the 
metaphysical  rather  than  from  the  sensory,  or 
obvious,  or  physical  standpoint  he  has  entered  Sal- 
vation's port. 

The  next  instruction  is  to  harbor  there.  By 
entering  the  port  and  harboring  there  he  means  to 
live  temporarily  in  this  metaphysical  port,  this 
port  of  the  metaphysical  view  of  life.  In  other 
words,  to  continue  to  study  and  contemplate  life 
from  the  metaphysical  point  of  view.  Next,  seek 
for  one  to  take  you  by  the  hand  and  lead  you  into 
Gnosis'  gates.  He  takes  the  position  that  to  change 
one's  views  of  life  from  that  induced  by  the  senses 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


21 


to  the  metaphysical,  and  to  maintain  that  meta- 
physical view  of  life,  is  about  as  far  as  one  can  go 
by  his  own  effort.  In  other  words,  Hermes  was 
not  a  believer  in  the  idea  that  one  could  look  within 
and  find  the  truth.  He  does  not  believe  that  it  was 
advisable  for  anyone  to  try  to  attain  the  Gnosis 
by  development  dependent  upon  himself.  He  did 
not  consider  that  there  was  any  inner  voice  that 
could  lead  one  to  the  consciousness  of  truth,  but 
rather  held  that  the  metaphysical  view  of  things 
was  about  as  far  as  one  could  go  without  assistance. 
When  one  had  reached  this  stage  Hermes  advised 
him  to  seek  for  an  Initiate  who  understood  the 
higher  teachings,  who  understood  the  nature  of 
things  to  a  great  extent,  who  would  lead  him  into 
the  gates  of  Gnosis.  Mind  you,  he  does  not  say, 
who  w^ould  give  him  Gnosis,  for  no  teacher  can 
impart  Gnosis  to  any  human  being.  All  the 
teacher  can  do  is  to  teach  philosophy  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  Reason  through  analysis,  to  bring 
one's  soul  to  that  stage  of  development  where  he 
is  able  to  reach  the  gates  of  Gnosis.  Hence  he 
advised  everyone  who  had  entered  Salvation's 
port  to  remain  in  that  state  of  mind,  not  striving 
to  go  beyond  it  until  he  had  found  a  Master  who 
was  able  through  teaching  to  prepare  him  for 
Gnosis. 

Where  shines  clear  Light,  of  every  dark- 
ness clean;  where  not  a  single  soul  is  drunk, 
but  sober  all  they  gaze  with  their  heart's 
eyes  on  Him  who  willeth  to  be  seen. 

In  this  paragraph  we  have  a  description  of  the 
Gnosis.  In  the  first  place,  there  shines  clear  Light. 
By  this  he  does  not  mean  physical  light,  nor  yet 
cosmic  light,  but  rather  does  he  mean  that  divine 
ray  of  light  from  which  mind  proceeds.  And  this 
clear  Divine  Light  shines  in  the  place  of  Gnosis. 


22 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


Within  the  gates  of  Gnosis.  It  is  one  of  the  condi- 
tions precedent  to  the  attainment  of  Gnosis.  This 
Light  is  clean  of  every  darkness,  for  here  in  this 
Light  there  is  nothing  but  the  pure  undivided 
Divine  Light  which  shines  into  the  soul  of  the 
aspirant  illuminating  his  consciousness  with  this 
clear  Divine  Light.  Where  not  a  single  soul  is 
drunk,  for  the  simple  reason  that  this  Light  dispels 
all  darkness,  all  ignorance,  causing  the  light  to 
reflect  the  perfect  truth  and  thus  leaving  no  space 
for  ignorance.  The  soul  being  clearly  illumined 
by  the  Divine  Light  is  not  drunk  but  sober.  All 
souls  bathed  in  this  Light  must  be  free  of  ignor- 
ance, and  therefore  in  a  state  of  soberness  result- 
ing from  the  clear  consciousness  of  truth.  So  that 
all  gaze  with  their  heart's  eyes;  that  is  with  the 
perception  of  their  souls,  with  their  soul  sense,  on 
Him  who  willeth  to  be  seen,  that  is  upon  the  Abso- 
lute, unmanifest  God.  The  soul  sense  of  the 
Gnosis  is  therefore  able  to  give  him  a  clear  view 
of  the  unmanifest  God,  the  God  beyond  all  name. 
He  it  is  who  is  the  subject  of  their  contemplation. 

Where  no  ear  can  hear  Him,  nor  can  eye 
see  Him,  nor  tongue  speak  of  Him,  but 
[only]  mind  and  heart. 

God  cannot  be  approached  through  the  medium 
of  the  senses.  He  cannot  be  heard,  neither  can  He 
be  seen,  neither  can  He  be  described  by  words  of 
speech.  God  is  therefore  entirely  removed  from 
the  plane  of  the  senses.  He  can  only  be  seen,  heard 
and  spoken  of  by  mind  and  heart.  That  is  to  say, 
only  through  intelligence  and  devotion  is  it  pos- 
sible for  one  to  deal  with  God.  Language  cannot 
describe  Him,  we  can  only  think  of  Him,  and  the 
heart's  devotion  can  alone  grasp  His  nature. 
Therefore  God  must  be  worshiped  in  thought  and 
the  devotion  of  the  heart.    Hence  the  Gnostic 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


23 


must  be  one  whose  mind  is  capable  of  thinking 
independently  of  the  testimony  of  the  senses.  It 
must  work  entirely  apart  from  the  senses,  dealing 
in  the  problem  from  altogether  a  different  angle. 
In  other  words,  it  is  a  pure,  metaphysical,  mystical 
contemplation  of  mind  and  heart  directed  unto 
the  consideration  of  the  nature  of  God.  The  train- 
ing one  receives  from  the  Master  is  in  reality  to 
develop  this  faculty  of  which  we  are  speaking,  the 
faculty  for  the  independent  operation  of  the  mind 
and  heart  when  entirely  divested  of  the  testimony 
of  the  senses. 

But  first  thou  must  tear  off  from  thee  the 
cloak  which  thou  dost  wear, — the  web  of 
ignorance,  the  ground  of  bad,  corruption's 
chain,  the  carapace  of  darkness,  the  living 
death,  sensation's  corpse,  the  tomb  thou  car- 
riest  with  thee,  the  robber  in  thy  house,  who 
through  the  things  he  loveth,  hateth  tliee, 
and  through  the  things  he  hateth,  bears  thee 
malice. 

In  this  paragraph  he  denounces  the  body,  and 
announces  that  before  one  can  reach  this  gnostic 
state  he  must  tear  off  from  him  the  cloak  which 
he  wears.  This  cloak  which  is  worn  by  the  soul 
is  the  body.  First  of  all  he  denounces  it  as  the 
web  of  ignorance,  because  of  the  fact  that  it  com- 
municates nothing  true  to  the  soul,  it  lies  about 
everything — that  is  the  physical  senses  misrepre- 
sent things.  Next,  it  is  the  ground  of  bad,  for 
nothing  good  can  be  expressed  in  the  physical 
body.  It  is  the  ground  of  bad.  We  do  all  things 
because  of  the  process  of  generation  which  goes 
on  in  the  production  of  the  body,  we  do  all  things 
because  we  have  physical  bodies.  It  is  utterly 
impossible  for  the  good  to  grow  out  of  the  physical. 


24 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


Next,  corruption's  chain,  that  is  to  say  the  chain 
of  corruption  by  which  we  are  bound.  The  con- 
tinual process  of  corruption  which  goes  on  because 
of  the  presence  of  the  body.  The  carapace  of 
darkness,  because  the  bodily  senses  shut  out  the 
light,  causing  us  to  be  guided  by  false  testimony, 
by  false  sensations.  Thus  the  body  shuts  out  the 
light  and  binds  us  to  darkness.  The  living  death, 
because  the  body  going  through  the  process  of  cor- 
ruption, of  transition,  continually  dies.  Our  life 
is  but  a  sequence  of  deaths.  Sensation's  corpse, 
that  is  the  corpse  through  which  the  senses  oper- 
ate, the  corpse  produced  by  sensation.  Every  man 
is  really  dead  so  long  as  he  is  governed  by  the 
senses.  He  only  lives  when  they  are  overcome. 
The  tomb  thou  carriest  with  thee.  The  body  is 
described  as  the  tomb  in  which  the  soul  is  buried. 
The  robber  in  thy  house.  The  body  and  its 
physical  sensations  rob  one  of  the  soul's  life, 
because  so  long  as  the  corporeal  and  sensuous  life 
is  led  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  lead  the  spiritual 
life.  Who  through  the  things  he  loveth,  hateth 
thee.  Remember  the  one  addressed  here  is  the 
soul  always,  and  the  body,  through  the  things  it 
loves,  hates  the  soul,  because  it  strives  after  phys- 
ical gratification  and  thus  prevents  the  spiritual 
gratification  of  the  soul.  And  through  the  things 
he  hateth,  bears  thee  malice.  In  other  words,  all 
the  antipathies  of  the  body  are  malicious  because 
of  the  attitude  which  they  have  upon  the  soul. 

While  this  paragraph  deals  with  the  body  as  the 
subject  of  its  denunciation,  the  bodily  life,  yet  there 
is  a  secondary  meaning.  It  is  not  merely  the  body 
that  is  here  used  in  its  physical  senses  but  we  have 
also  a  sort  of  mystical  body  of  sensation  that  we 
have  to  take  into  consideration,  and  that  is  perhaps 
the  more  important  of  the  two.  Because  he  states 
that  first  we  must  tear  off  the  cloak  which  we  wear 
before  we  can  enter  the  gates  of  Gnosis.   Now  if 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


25 


this  related  only  to  the  physical  body  it  would 
mean  that  no  one  could  attain  Gnosis  until  he  died, 
but  the  whole  tenor  of  Hermetic  teaching  is  the 
urging  of  people  to  attain  Gnosis  while  they  are 
yet  alive.  Therefore  this  cannot  refer  so  much  to 
the  physical  body  as  to  a  sort  of  mystical  body  of 
sensation,  which  will  really  mean  the  cloak  that 
he  speaks  of  here.  In  this  sense  the  web  of  ignor- 
ance would  relate  to  a  web  woven  by  ignorant 
thinking,  which  binds  the  mind  as  in  a  spider's 
web,  so  to  speak;  a  pall,  a  curtain,  that  incloses 
the  mind  and  soul,  preventing  them  from  seeing 
beyond  it.  This  must  be  torn  off  first,— the  web 
of  ignorance — and  we  must  destroy  the  web  of 
ignorance  by  destroying  ignorance  with  knowl- 
edge. The  ground  of  bad,  that  is,  the  foundation 
from  which  bad  proceeds.  As  bad  is  the  result  of 
genesis  it  will  follow  that  to  tear  away  the  ground 
of  bad  will  mean  to  cause  the  fruit  of  ignorance 
to  be  no  longer  borne.  That  is  to  prevent  our 
previous  ignorant  thinking  from  bringing  forth 
fruit,  from  generating  offspring  in  the  form  of 
consciousness  and  deed.  Corruption's  chain  must 
also  be  torn  off,  that  is  to  say  the  sequence  of  cor- 
ruption which  is  operating  within  our  being,  this 
must  be  torn  away  by  entirely  separating  in  our 
consciousness  the  soul  life  from  the  bodily  life. 
No  one  can  escape  the  chain  of  corruption  so  long 
as  he  looks  upon  the  physical  body  as  being  him- 
self. The  self  must  be  identified  with  the  soul,  and 
when  the  soul  has  been  identified  as  the  self,  the 
body  being  no  longer  recognized  as  an  integral 
part  of  the  self,  corruption's  chain  will  cease  to 
affect  the  soul.  In  other  words,  we  must  cease  to 
believe  in  corruption  and  death  and  assert  our 
immortality,  and  in  this  way  corruption's  chain  is 
torn  off.  We  must  tear  off  the  carapace  of  dark- 
ness. We  must  refuse  to  dwell  in  the  dark.  We 
must  open  our  souls  to  the  shining  of  the  light,  thus 


26 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


escaping  the  shell  of  darkness  induced  by  ignor- 
ance and  carnality  of  mind.  The  living  death 
must  be  torn  away  by  consciously  living  not  in 
time  but  in  eternity,  by  realizing  the  eternity  of  the 
soul's  nature.  We  must  cease  to  function  in  sen- 
sation's corpse  by  repudiating  the  testimony  of  the 
senses;  by  thinking  not  in  terms  of  sense  percep- 
tion or  experience,  but  in  terms  of  the  Pure  Rea- 
son. No  one  can  escape  the  corpse  of  sensation  so 
long  as  he  believes  in  the  testimony  of  his  senses. 
By  repudiating  the  testimony  of  the  senses,  by 
refusing  to  accept  it  as  true,  by  thinking  rather  in 
terms  of  eternal  truth  through  the  Pure  Reason 
of  the  soul,  one  is  able  to  cast  aside  sensation's 
corpse  and  live  the  spiritual  life  w^hile  still  in  the 
body..  The  tomb  thou  carriest  with  thee,  is  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than  the  life  which  one  leads, 
his  consciousness  being  bounded  by  the  testimony 
of  the  senses.  This  leads  to  a  belief  in  death  and 
the  belief  in  death  entombs  the  soul  in  mortality, 
consequently  the  soul  abiding  in  this  mortal  tomb, 
is  shut  ofif  from  the  true  life.  The  robber  in  thy 
house,  is  this  belief  in  mortality  induced  by  sensa- 
tion, in  other  words,  the  mental  attitude  which 
sensation  induces — such  mental  attitude  robs  the 
soul  of  its  true  life,  in  that  it  renders  it  impossible 
for  the  soul  to  be  conscious  of  its  true  attributes 
seeing  that  the  human  consciousness  is  made  up 
entirely  of  dying  things,  of  the  changes  and  transi- 
tions which  the  objects  of  sense  indicate.  This 
robber  in  the  house  which  we  have  thus  indicated 
hates  the  soul  through  the  very  things  he  loves. 
That  is  to  say,  as  long  as  the  consciousness  is  made 
up  of  the  testimony  of  the  senses,  of  ignorance,  it 
will  be  antagonistic  to  every  aspect  of  the  true  soul 
life,  being  entirely  against  the  life  of  the  soul,  com- 
pletely destroying  whatever  of  the  soul  life  tends 
to  manifest  itself,  and  these  antipathies,  that  is  the 
antipathies  of  the  senses,  befog  the  mind  and  are 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


27 


really  antipathetic  to  the  life  of  the  soul.  What- 
ever the  sense  induced  consciousness  opposes  is  in 
reality  a  true  attribute  of  the  soul  life;  therefore 
we  are  able  to  see  that  the  cloak  here  spoken  of 
is  not  only  the  physical  body  but  is  a  sort  of  sub- 
jective body  growing  out  of  the  direct  action  of 
the  senses,  a  body  of  illusion,  a  body  of  ignorance, 
which  must  be  overcome  by  the  mind  freeing  itself 
from  the  illusions  of  the  senses,  and  that  until  this 
has  been  consummated  it  is  utterly  impossible  for 
the  first  gleam  of  Gnosis  to  enter  the  consciousness. 
Hence  to  tear  off  this  cloak  while  yet  in  the  body 
means  that  the  soul  must  become  entirely  independ- 
ent of  all  influences  exercised  by  the  body.  The 
soul  must  become  the  positive  pole  and  the  body 
merely  the  expression  on  the  physical  plane  of  the 
soul  life.  So  long  as  the  body  is  the  vehicle  for 
the  physical  plane,  it  is  the  cloak  of  ignorance. 
It  only  ceases  to  be  this  when  it  becomes  the  vehicle 
for  the  soul  operating  upon  the  physical  plane, 
but  is  in  no  sense  influenced  by  the  physical  plane. 
Only  in  this  way  is  one  freed  from  the  cloak  of 
ignorance  and  enabled  to  enter  the  gnostic  path. 
The  path  of  true  enlightenment.  Such  an  one  is 
in  fact  a  spirit  rather  than  a  body.  He  is  just  as 
much  a  freed  spirit  as  he  is  when  he  permanently 
leaves  the  body. 


LESSON  II 


The  Limitations  of  the  Body 

3.  Such  is  the  hateful  cloak  thou  wear- 
est, — that  throttles  thee  [and  holds  thee] 
down  to  it,  in  order  that  thou  mayst  not 
gaze  above,  and,  having  seen  the  Beauty  of 
the  Truth,  and  Good,  that  dwells  therein, 
detest  the  bad  of  it;  having  found  out  the 
plot  that  it  has  schemed  against  thee,  by 
making  void  of  sense  those  seeming  things 
which  men  think  senses. 

For  that  it  hath  with  mass  of  matter 
blocked  them  up  and  crammed  them  full  of 
loathsome  lust,  so  that  thou  mayst  not  hear 
about  the  things  that  thou  shouldst  hear,  nor 
see  the  things  that  thou  shouldst  see. 

In  order  to  understand  this  it  must  be  thor- 
oughly borne  in  mind  that  the  soul  and  body  are 
clearly  differentiated  the  one  from  the  other.  The 
soul,  in  the  Hermetic  writing,  is  always  spoken  of 
as  the  personality,  the  body  is  something  separate 
and  distinct  that  is  made  use  of  by  the  soul  during 
its  incarnate  life  and  at  the  same  time  greatly 
hampers  the  life  of  the  soul.  Therefore  the  ''thou" 
spoken  of  here  does  not  include  the  body  but  repre- 
sents the  soul  as  separate  and  distinct  from  the 
body.  This  soul,  however,  is  not  to  be  conceived  of 
as  an  impersonal  ego  but  rather  as  the  true  per- 
sonality; therefore  he  speaks  of  the  body  as  the 
hateful  cloak  thou  v/earest.  That  is  to  say  not 
only  the  physical  body  but  to  a  certain  extent  the 
false  personality  induced  by  the  body.  The  body 
and  everything  springing  from  it  are  described  as 

29 


30 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


3.  hateful  cloak.  This  cloak,  the  body  and  its  false 
personality,  throttle  the  soul  and  holds  it  down  to 
it,  the  body,  thus  preventing  the  soul  from  realiz- 
ing its  own  true  life,  compelling  it  to  function 
physically,  forcing  it  to  realize  a  purely  physical 
life  only,  and  thus  preventing  it  from  gazing  above 
and  seeing  the  Beauty  and  Truth  and  Good  that 
dwells  in  the  realm  above,  preventing  the  soul  from 
detesting  the  bad  of  the  lower  life  and  preventing 
it  from  finding  out  the  plot  that  the  body  has 
schemed  against  the  soul  by  making  void  of  sense 
those  seeming  things  which  men  think  sense  so 
that  one  is  unable  to  rise  above  this  limitation  of 
the  body.  This  is  the  real  crux  of  the  situation; 
the  fact  that  the  senses  are  in  reality  void  of  sense; 
what  the  senses  indicate  in  reality — containing  the 
true  sense.  To  understand  this  doctrine  one  must 
bear  in  mind  the  doctrine  of  Kosmic  Sense  as 
enunciated  by  Hermes.  This  doctrine  of  Kosmic 
Sense  holds  to  the  view  that  there  is  in  nature,  or 
in  Kosmos,  a  principle  which  is  termed  Kosmic 
Sense,  and  which  is  really  the  depositary  of  all 
things  sensible;  that  in  a  certain  sense  Kosmos  is 
through  certain  senses  made  aware  of  the  existence 
of  all  things  sensible,  and  in  fact  that  the  sensibles 
are  the  direct  product  of  the  Kosmic  sense.  To 
understand  this  more  accurately  we  must  bear  in 
mind  that  the  sensibles  are  the  product  of  a  cre- 
ative force.  Now  Hermes  teaches  that  the  Kosmos 
is  not  only  endowed  with  thought  but  also  with 
sense,  and  that  it  is  the  perceptive  faculty  of  the 
Kosmos  that  produces  the  sensibles.  In  other 
words,  Kosmic  sense,  far  from  being  a  Kosmic  fac- 
ulty for  the  perception  of  things  already  existent, 
is  rather  that  sense  which  enables  Kosmic  thought 
to  become  visible  to  the  Kosmos,  a  sort  of  imag- 
ing or  visualizing  faculty  with  which  Kosmos  is 
endowed ;  this  visualizing  or  imaging  faculty 
enabling  Kosmos  to  give  form  to  its  thought,  thus 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


31 


causing  Kosmic  thoughts  to  manifest  correspond- 
ing images,  which  in  this  way,  through  such  imag- 
ing or  visualizing  of  Kosmis,  become  definite 
forms.  In  this  way  are  all  things  brought  into 
being  through  Kosmic  sense.  Thus  all  sensibles 
are  created  by  sense.  Now  the  theory  here  taken 
is,  that  it  is  only  those  things  perceived  into 
existence  by  Kosmic  sense  that  really  are,  and  that 
really  possess  sense.  The  things  which  men  call 
sense  are  in  reality  void  of  sense  in  this  Kosmic 
sense  of  the  term.  The  reason  is,  this  Kosmic  sense 
brings  into  manifestation  the  things  that  are,  while 
the  senses  of  man  give  to  him  distorted  images, 
caricatures  or  pictures  of  those  things,  which 
images  or  pictures  are  never  accurate.  What  he 
pleads  for  is  that  soul  sense  w^hich,  when  devel- 
oped, will  enable  man  to  unite  this  sense  of  his 
w^ith  Kosmic  sense  and  thereby  sense  the  things  as 
they  are  instead  of  things  as  they  seem.  A  sense 
that  will  enable  one  to  grasp  noumena  instead  of 
phenomena.  His  indictment  against  the  body  is, 
in  reality  that  the  bodily  senses  by  presenting  dis- 
torted images  of  things  prevent  one  from  seeing  the 
things  as  they  are ;  therefore  by  giving  a  man  a 
false  sense  they  prevent  him  from  attaining  the 
true  sense.  Therefore  he  accuses  the  body  of  schem- 
ing a  plot  against  man  to  deceive  him,  and  we  are 
only  able  to  discover  this  plot  when  through  the 
awakening  of  the  true  sense  we  have  made  void  of 
sense  those  seeming  things  which  men  think  senses, 
that  is  to  say  by  discovering  that  the  testimony  of 
the  senses  is  in  reality  void  of  true  sense.  Our  com- 
mon sense  is  therefore  seen  to  be  utterly  senseless, 
because  common  sense  is  that  attitude  of  mind 
w^hich  grows  out  of  the  testimony  of  the  senses  and 
out  of  all  the  experiences  which  we  derive  through 
them.  This  being  the  case  it  w^U  follow  that  com- 
mon sense  w411  be  as  erroneous  as  the  testimony  of 
the  senses,  through  which  it  is  derived.    In  other 


32 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


words,  common  sense  is  at  all  times  absolutely 
void  of  sense.  In  order  therefore  for  one  to  see 
the  Beauty  of  the  Truth  and  Good  that  dwells  in 
the  realm  of  the  soul,  one  must  attain  the  true 
sense,  and  this  attainment  of  the  true  sense  is  the 
all  important  problem  with  which  we  have  to  deal. 
But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  body's  senses 
stand  absolutely  in  the  way,  and  he  is  indicating 
here  the  great  difficulty  with  which  we  have  to 
deal  if  we  would  attain  true  sense  while  living  in 
the  body,  because  the  body's  senses  are  diametric- 
ally opposed  to  the  attainment  of  true  sense. 

For  that  it  hath  with  mass  of  matter 
blocked  them  up  and  crammed  them  full  of 
loathsome  lust,  so  that  thou  may'st  not  hear 
about  the  things  that  thou  should'st  hear, 
nor  see  the  things  that  thou  should'st  see. 

We  now"  come  to  consider  the  cause  back  of  the 
irregularity  and  irresponsibility  of  the  senses,  and 
it  is  stated  that  that  is  because  the  senses  have  been 
blocked  up  with  mass  of  matter  and  have  been 
crammed  full  of  loathsome  lust.  The  first  state- 
ment indicates  the  real  cause, — they  have  been 
blocked  up  with  mass  of  matter.  And  of  course 
he  is  here  aluding  to  the  physical  body  and  its  mas- 
sive material  character.  In  order  to  understand 
this  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  all  sensation  and  all 
impressions  of  every  description  are  due  to  vibra- 
tion, and  that  vibration  accomplishes  its  work  by 
reason  of  the  resistance  which  is  offered  to  it,  but 
at  the  same  time,  by  reason  of  its  ability  to  over- 
come such  resistance.  The  rate  of  vibration  will 
therefore  determine  the  quality  of  such  impres- 
sions. All  sensation  is  the  result  of  such  impression 
growing  out  of  vibration.  Now  it  will  follow 
that  the  more  gross  the  matter  is  through  which 
vibration  moves  the  less  rapid  will  be  the  rate  of 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


33 


vibration  which  can  possibly  move  through  such 
matter^  hence  it  will  follow  that  the  vibration 
emanating  from  the  body,  or  set  in  motion  in  the 
ether  by  such  body,  will  not  be  able  to  freely 
express  itself  through  any  medium  more  gross  in 
its  atomic  and  molecular  structures  than  is  the 
ether  itself.  All  vibratory  waves,  even  of  a  phys- 
ical nature,  passing  through  the  ether,  will  take  on 
the  etheric  vibration,  consequently  should  they 
contact  a  body  more  gross  than  the  ether  their 
vibration  will  be  lowered  in  accordance  with  the 
degree  of  such  grossness,  therefore  no  vibration 
that  passes  through  the  body  as  a  medium,  can 
possibly  represent  in  sensation  a  condition  less 
gross  than  the  body.  The  result  will  be  the  images 
which  are  indicated  to  consciousness  through  the 
medium  of  sensation  will  be  images  distorted  by 
the  grossness  of  the  body.  It  at  once  becomes  evi- 
dent that  the  sensations  which  we  can  possibly 
receive  in  the  body  must  be  very  diflerent  from 
those  objects  which  originally  produced  those 
sensations.  In  order  to  get  an  understanding  of 
this  difference,  take  into  consideration  the  electric 
light,  which  is  produced  by  a  current  of  electricity 
passing  through  a  filament  of  carbon,  then  imagine 
this  same  current  having  to  pass  through  an  iron 
bar  an  inch  in  diameter,  and  you  can  have  some 
faint  idea  of  the  difference  that  the  body  makes 
between  the  original  vibratory  force  and  the  sensa- 
tion which  we  get  from  it.  Therefore  it  will  fol- 
low that  the  mass  of  matter  through  which  vibra- 
tion has  to  pass  in  order  to  awaken  physical  sensa- 
tion is  such  that  those  sensations  will  never  be 
reliable. 

Next  we  have  the  statement  that  the  body  has 
crammed  the  senses  full  of  loathsome  lust.  This  is 
an  outgrowth  of  the  mass  of  matter  that  fills  the 
senses.  The  loathsome  lust,  or  desires  that  the 
senses  are  full  of,  is  the  result  of  this  material  ::ram- 


34 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


ming,  because  all  vibration  has  to  pass  through  this 
gross  massive  matter,  and  its  form  is  correspond- 
ingly changed.  It  follows  that  these  vibratory 
attractions  which  result  from  vibration,  must  com- 
pletely change  their  form.  The  gentle  attraction 
which  would  exist  between  rapidly  moving  forces 
has  become  altogether  different.  The  result  is 
our  desires  cease  to  be  mere  attractions  growing 
out  of  chemical  affinity  and  become  in  every  sense 
of  the  term  corporeal,  being  influenced  by  the 
sensation  of  form,  consequently  sensation  must 
naturally  express  itself  in  the  form  of  loathsome 
lust.  Lust  is  hence  nothing  more  than  the  inevita- 
ble consequence  of  vibratory  attraction  operating 
through  the  gross  physical  body;  hence  we  have 
lust  because  we  have  bodies,  and,  ordinarily  speak- 
ing, the  body  is  the  antecedent  of  lust  as  lust  is 
the  legitimate  consequence  of  the  body.  We  have 
thus  a  false  personality  induced  by  those  distorted 
sensations  and  by  the  lust  which  they  engender. 
This  false  personality  which  is  the  avenue  through 
which  the  average  man  feeds  his  mind  through 
which  all  consciousness  is  evolved,  being  made  up 
of  distorted  sensations  and  loathsome  lust,  keeps 
the  soul  in  bond  so  that  the  soul  can  only  grow  as 
it  is  fed  by  the  body  and  by  this  false  physical  per- 
sonality. The  soul  is  therefore  prevented  from 
living  its  true  life  and  is  compelled  to  get  all  its 
impressions  in  this  way.  Thus  it  is  held  down  by 
the  body,  enchained,  as  it  were. 

The  result  of  this  condition  is  that  one,  that  is 
a  soul,  is  not  able  to  hear  about  the  things  that  he 
should  hear,  nor  see  the  things  that  he  should  see. 
In  other  words,  sight  and  hearing  are  permanently 
shut  off  from  the  true  senses.  Man  sees  not  things 
as  they  are  but  as  they  seem  to  this  distorted  per- 
sonality, and  he  hears  not  true  sounds,  or  true 
words,  but  rather  those  distortions  which  the  audi- 
tory apparatus  communicate  to  consciousness.  As 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


35 


the  body  does  not  permit  one  to  either  see  or  hear 
the  true,  it  follows  that  he  is  shut  off  from  reality 
and  is  forced  to  live  in  that  realm  of  psychic  dis- 
tortion. The  soul  ceases  to  act  directly  and  in 
fact  lives  only  through  the  psychic  reactions  result- 
ing from  this  impression  of  the  senses.  Thus  it  is 
merely  a  psychical  reaction  growing  out  of  the 
distorted  senses  of  the  body.  This  life  of  psychical 
reaction  is  in  reality  the  cause  of  practically  all  the 
ills  with  which  we  have  to  bear,  and  the  direct 
action  of  the  soul  becomes  practically  impossible, 
as  a  result  of  this  distorted  life.  From  this  we  can 
easily  reach  the  conclusion  that  the  first  step  in  the 
Hermetic  Art  must  be  the  freeing  of  the  soul  from 
dependence  upon  the  body's  senses.  So  long  as  the 
soul  depends  upon  the  senses  of  the  body  it  can 
never  escape  this  condition,  which  is  the  ground 
of  bad.  (Dur  Art,  therefore,  involves  as  its  first 
step  the  attainment  of  that  state  of  unfoldment  in 
w^hich  the  direct  action  of  the  soul  is  possible. 
This  is  accomplished  through  the  awakening  of  the 
soul  sense.  That  sense  w^hich  enables  the  soul  to 
unite  itself  with  Kosmic  sense  and  thus  to  sense 
the  operations  of  Kosmic  sense  and  hence  see 
things  as  they  are  and  not  as  they  seem.  When  the 
soul's  sense  has  been  developed  it  must  be  united 
w^ith  intuition,  which  is  that  faculty  of  the  soul 
enabling  it  to  become  in  a  way  cognizant  of  Kos- 
mic thoughts.  Next  the  faculty  of  pure  reason 
must  be  developed,  which  will  enable  the  soul  to 
analyze  and  synthesize  the  process  of  the  Kosmic 
mind.  In  this  way  the  soul  becomes  enabled  to 
function  independent  of  the  body.  To  function 
in  direct  connection  with  the  soul  plane  of  the 
Kosmos.  Therefore  w^e  have  developed  the  direct 
action  of  the  soul,  thus  freeing  it  from  those  psy- 
chical reactions  growing  out  of  the  operation  of 
physical  sensation.  When  this  has  been  accom- 
plished the  soul  no  longer  depends  upon  the  senses 


36 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


for  its  knowledge  and  its  concept  of  the  world.  It 
is  now  emancipated  from  the  sway  of  sense 
engendered  consciousness,  having  the  direct  soul 
consciousness.  Thus  in  a  sense  it  is  free,  emanci- 
pated, dwelling  on  its  own  plane  and  there  being 
fully  conscious. 

After  this  has  been  attained  we  have  then  what 
is  really  the  Great  Work  of  the  Hermetic  Art, 
nam.ely,  the  bringing  of  the  body  into  harmony 
with  the  soul  so  that  the  soul  acts  directly  upon 
the  body,  acting  from  within  outward  unto  the 
end  that  the  body's  sense,  instead  of  reacting  under 
the  vibrations  from  without,  responds  to  the  vibra- 
tions from  within,  vvith  the  result  that  the  soul 
sense  reproduces  itself  through  the  medium  of  the 
body  sense.  Thus  the  body's  sense,  instead  of  act- 
ing in  the  usual  manner,  in  reality  dramatizes  the 
soul  sense.  Of  course  in  order  that  this  state  may 
be  realized  we  have  to  first  develop  the  body 
through  a  process  of  transmutation  or  alchemical- 
ization  to  the  point  where  it  will  respond  through 
its  material  atoms  and  molecules  to  the  vibration 
of  the  soul.  Of  course  this  is  never  fully  realized. 
However,  as  this  process  of  transmutation  goes  on 
from  day  to  day,  it  becomes  more  refined,  more 
etherealized,  more  spiritualized,  more  subtle,  until 
at  last  it  reaches  the  point  where  it  responds  fairly 
well  to  the  vibration  of  the  soul.  Thus  the 
alchemy  of  the  body  is  the  next  step  in  the  Sacred 
Art  which  must  be  begun  subsequent  to  the  free- 
ing of  the  soul  from  dependence  upon  the  body.  It 
will  therefore  be  seen  that  the  process  is  exactly 
reversed  from  what  it  is  in  the  ordinary  mind. 
The  natural  man  is  the  one  in  whom  the  bodily 
senses  control  the  soul,  feed  and  instruct  the  soul 
from  without,  while  the  Artistic  man  is  the  one  in 
w^hom  the  soul  controls  and  dominates  the  body 
and  its  senses,  causing  them  to  reproduce  in  terms 
of  physical  sensation  the  consciousness  of  the  soul. 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


37 


All  processes  of  bodily  generation  are  therefore 
reversed.  In  the  Artistic  man  they  are  controlled 
in  all  their  operations  by  the  generative  activity 
of  the  soul,  hence  they  are  regenerated  from  with- 
in. Therefore  the  Artistic  life  is  very  often  termed 
the  regenerate  life  while  the  natural  life  is  the  gen- 
erate life.  This  is  the  true  key  to  the  Hermetic 
Art  as  applied  to  the  life  of  man. 

Many  people  talk  about  getting  back  to  nature, 
— about  the  natural  life,  the  natural  man,  etc.,  but 
in  our  Art  there  is  no  such  ideal.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  we  are  striving  through  Art  to  save  man  from 
nature,  to  elevate  him  above  the  plane  of  what 
nature  will  produce,  and  thus  through  the  regen- 
eration of  the  w^hole  being  by  the  generative  action 
of  the  soul  to  bring  man  into  the  higher  estate;  to 
make  the  ideal  life  practical  by  having  all  the 
emotions  of  his  physical  existence  directly  con- 
trolled by  the  force  of  ideas  and  ideals.  This  is 
the  real  process  of  Art.  The  Hermetic  Artist  is 
the  one  who  is  doing  it,  who  is  actually  trans- 
muting the  body  in  accordance  with  the  direct 
action  of  the  soul.  In  a  certain  sense  we  have  here 
a  substitute  for  civilization  and  culture.  Civil- 
ization and  culture  are  an  effort  to  change  the 
nature  of  man,  to  redeem  him  from  nature,  to 
develop  an  artificial  character  in  place  of  thef 
natural  character;  but  this  is  accomplished  by 
civilization  and  culture  independent  of  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  soul  life,  independent  of  any  concept 
of  the  interior  life.  Therefore  the  Hermetic  Art 
produces  something  altogether  different  than  does 
the  force  of  civilization  and  culture,  seeing  that 
their  efforts  are  from  without  to  transform  man 
into  something  other  than  his  particular  nature, 
w^hile  by  Art  we  have  the  soul  redeeming  the  man 
from  nature;  producing  an  artificial  culture  that  is 
purely  in  accordance  with  the  spirit.  This  is  the 
real  function  of  the  Hermetic  Art,  v/hich  has  as 


38 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


its  basic  principle  the  transmutation  of  the  body 
unto  the  end  that  it  may  act  as  the  vehicle  for  the 
expression  of  the  soul  instead  of  the  soul  being  the 
internalization  of  the  body. 


The  Hermetic  Art 


That  No  One  of  Existing  Things  Doth  Perish, 
But  Men  in  Error  Speak  of  Their  Changes 
as  Destructions  and  as  Deaths 

TEXT 

Parthey  (G.),  Hermetis  Trismegisti  Poe- 

mander  (Berlin,  1854),  56^59. 
Patrizzi  (F.),  Nova  de  Universis  Philo- 

sophia  (Venice,  1593),  48a,  48b. 
Mead  (G.  R.  S.),  Thrice  Greatest  Hermes 

(London,  1906),  Corpus  Hermeticum 

VIII  (IX). 

1.  l^Hermes^,  Concerning  Soul  and 
Body,  son,  we  now  must  speak;  in  what  way 
Soul  is  deathless,  and  whence  comes  the 
activity  in  composing  and  dissolving  Body. 

For  there's  no  death  for  aught  of  things 
[that  are]  ;  the  thought  [this]  word  conveys, 
is  either  void  of  fact,  or  [simply]  by  the 
knocking  off  a  syllable  what  is  called 
''death,"  doth  stand  for  ''deathless." 

For  death  is  of  destruction,  and  nothing 
in  the  Cosmos  is  destroyed.  For  if  Cosmos 
is  second  God,  a  life  that  cannot  die,  it  can- 
not be  that  any  part  of  this  immortal  life 
should  die.  All  things  in  Cosmos  are  parts 

39 


40 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


of  Cosmos,  and  most  of  all  is  man,  the 
rational  animal. 

2.  For  truly  first  of  all,  eternal  and  tran- 
scending birth,  is  God  the  universals' 
Maker.  Second  is  he  after  His  image,  Cos- 
mos, brought  into  being  by  Him,  sustained 
and  fed  by  Him,  made  deathless,  as  by  his 
own  Sire,  living  for  aye,  as  ever  free  from 
death. 

Now  that  which  ever-liveth,  differs  from 
the  Eternal ;  for  He  hath  not  been  brought 
to  being  by  another,  and  even  if  He  hath 
been  brought  to  being.  He  hath  not  been 
brought  into  being  by  Himself,  but  ever  is 
brought  into  being. 

For  the  Eternal,  in  that  It  is  Eternal,  is 
the  all.  The  Father  is  Himself  eternal  of 
Himself,  but  Cosmos  hath  become  eternal 
and  immortal  by  the  Father. 

3.  And  of  the  matter  stored  beneath  it, 
the  Father  made  of  it  a  universal  body,  and 
packing  it  together  made  it  spherical — 
wrapping  it  round  the  life — [a  sphere] 
which  is  immortal  in  itself,  that  doth  make 
materiality  eternal. 

But  He,  the  Father,  full-filled  with  His 
ideas,  did  sow  the  lives  into  the  sphere,  and 
shut  them  in  as  in  a  cave,  willing  to  order 
forth  the  life  with  every  kind  of  living. 

So  He  with  deathlessness  enclosed  the  uni- 
versal body,  that  matter  might  not  wish  to 
separate  itself  from  body's  composition,  and 
so  dissolve  into  its  own  [original]  unorder. 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


41 


For  matter,  son,  when  it  was  yet  incorpo- 
rate, was  in  unorder.  And  it  doth  still 
retain  down  here  this  [nature  of  unorder] 
envolving  the  rest  of  the  small  lives — that 
increase-and-decrease  which  men  call  death. 

4.  It  is  round  earthly  lives  that  this 
unorder  doth  exist.  For  that  the  bodies  of 
the  heavenly  ones  preserve  one  order  allotted 
to  them  from  the  Father  as  their  rule ;  and  it 
is  by  the  restoration  of  each  one  [of  them] 
this  order  is  preserved  indissolute. 

The  ''restoration"  then  of  bodies  on  the 
earth  is  [thus  their]  composition,  whereas 
their  dissolution  restores  them  to  those 
bodies  which  can  never  be  dissolved,  that  is 
to  say,  w^hich  know  no  death.  Privation, 
thus,  of  sense  is  brought  about,  not  loss  of 
bodies. 

5.  Now  the  third  life — Man,  after  the 
image  of  the  Cosmos  made,  [and]  having 
mind,  after  the  Father's  will,  beyond  all 
earthly  lives — not  only  doth  have  feeling 
with  the  second  God,  but  also  hath  concep- 
tion of  the  first;  for  of  the  one  'tis  sensible 
as  of  a  body,  while  of  the  other  it  conceives 
as  bodieless  and  the  Good  Mind. 

Tat.    Doth  then  this  life  not  perish? 

Her,  Hush,  son!  and  understand  what 
God,  what  Cosmos  [is],  what  is  a  life  that 
cannot  die,  and  what  a  life  subject  to  disso- 
lution. 


42 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


Yea,  understand  the  Cosmos  is  by  God 
and  in  God;  but  Man  by  Cosmos  and  in 
Cosmos. 

The  source  and  limit  and  the  constitution 
of  all  things  is  God. 


LESSON  III 


Soul  and  Body 

1.  {Hermes):  Concerning  Soul  and 
Body,  son,  we  now  must  speak;  in  what  way 
Soul  is  deathless,  and  whence  comes  the 
activity  in  composing  and  dissolving  Body. 

For  there's  no  death  for  aught  of  things 
[that  are]  ;  the  thought  [this]  word  conveys, 
is  either  void  of  Body,  or  [simply]  by  the 
knocking  off  of  a  syllable  what  is  called 
[death],  doth  stand  for  [deathless]. 

For  death  is  of  destruction,  and  nothing 
in  the  Cosmos  is  destroyed.  For  if  Cosmos 
is  second  God,  a  life  that  cannot  die,  it  can- 
not be  that  any  part  of  this  immortal  life 
should  die.  All  things  in  Cosmos  are  parts 
of  Cosmos  and  most  of  all  is  man,  the 
rational  animal. 

{Hermes) :  Concerning  Soul  and  Body, 
son,  we  now  must  speak;  in  what  way  Soul 
is  deathless,  and  whence  comes  the  activity 
in  composing  and  dissolving  Body. 

The  subject  of  this  sermon  is  the  relation  of  the 
soul  and  the  body.  Both  principles  are  introduced 
into  the  discussion.  The  discussion  relates  itself 
to  the  way  in  which  the  soul  is  deathless,  or  immor- 
tal, and  the  sources  of  the  activity  composing  and 
dissolving  the  body.  We  therefore  find  that  the 
subject  involved  here  is  the  immortal  or  deathless 
nature  of  the  soul  taken  in  conjunction  with  the 
mortality  and  transformations  of  the  body.  He 

43 


44 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


indicates  that  there  is  an  activity  operating  in  the 
body  which  both  composes  and  dissolves  the  body. 
Hence  it  follows  that  it  is  the  same  activity  that 
composes  or  constructs  the  body  that  also  dissolves 
it.  We  must  therefore  see  in  physical  dissolution 
or  so-called  death,  the  disintegration  of  the  phys- 
ical structure  into  the  material  elements  of  which 
it  is  composed.  Death  is,  therefore,  the  dissolving 
of  the  body  into  the  different  elements  that  go  to 
construct  it.  In  other  words  the  body  is  organized 
from  previously  existing  elements,  and  death  is  the 
dissolution  of  this  organism  into  the  elements 
which  previously  constructed  it.  Hence  it  means 
nothing  more  than  that  those  elements  which  in 
the  body's  life  were  organic  become  inorganic 
through  death.  At  the  same  time  we  are  instructed 
that  this  transformation  does  not  touch  the  soul 
life,  the  soul  being  in  no  sense  influenced  by  such 
disintegrating  process. 

For  there's  no  death  for  aught  of  things 
[that  are]  ;  the  thought  [this]  word  conveys, 
is  either  void  of  body,  or  [simply]  by  the 
knocking  off  of  a  syllable  w^hat  is  called 
[death],  doth  stand  for  [deathless]. 

The  contention  made  here  is  that  there  is  no 
death  for  any  real  thing,  for  any  of  the  things  that 
are.  This  does  not  only  relate  to  the  human  soul 
but  to  everything  else,  to  every  organism.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  death.  What  has  once  been 
produced  must  forever  remain.  Immortality  in 
this  sense  is  therefore  extended  to  all  things.  He 
goes  so  far  as  to  contend  that  death  is  synonymous 
with  the  deathless,  that  it  can  have  no  other  mean- 
ing than  deathless.  He  contends  that  as  a  matter 
of  fact  nothing  dies.  He  is  not  speaking  here  of  any 
transcendental  ideas,  he  does  not  represent  ideal- 
ism when  he  says  there  is  no  death;  he  denies  the 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


45 


fact  of  death  ;  stating  plainly  and  emphatically  that 
nothing  dies,  as  a  matter  of  fact;  therefore  we 
must  not  look  upon  this  statement  as  being  an 
expression  of  any  transcendental  idealism,  as  being 
spiritually  understood,  but  he  is  stating  as  a  mat- 
ter of  physical  science  that  nothing  dies. 

For  death  is  of  destruction,  and  nothing 
in  the  Cosmos  is  destroyed.  For  if  Cosmos 
is  second  God,  a  life  that  cannot  die,  it  can- 
not be  that  any  part  of  this  immortal  life 
should  die.  All  things  in  Cosmos  are  parts 
of  Cosmos  and  most  of  all  is  man,  the 
rational  animal. 

In  this  paragraph  he  undertakes  to  explain  why 
it  is  that  there  can  be  no  death.  His  reason  is  that 
death  partakes  of  destruction.  All  death,  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  term,  would  be  a  destruction,  and 
he  states  that  nothing  in  the  Kosmos  is  ever 
destroyed.  From  this  we  come  to  his  argument, 
and  his  position  is  that  Kosmos  is  second  God.  He 
therefore  calls  our  attention  to  his  doctrine  of  the 
three  Gods.  That  is  to  say,  the  Absolute  God,  and 
the  Kosmos  as  His  manifestation  and  hence  the 
second  God, — the  image  of  God  in  another  sense, — 
and  man  as  the  third  God.  Now  the  Kosmos  is 
the  second  God  in  the  sense  that  it  is  the  direct 
manifestation  of  the  unmanifest  God.  In  a  cer- 
tain sense  it  is  the  manifest  God.  Being  the  mani- 
festation of  God  he  holds  that  in  order  for  the 
Kosmos  to  die  it  would  be  necessary  for  the  mani- 
festation of  God  to  cease,  because  the  Kosmos  in 
the  Hermetic  view  of  the  case,  is  not  a  permanent 
thing  in  the  sense  of  something  once  produced  that 
forever  remains,  but  rather  is  a  something  perpet- 
ually changing;  a  state  of  perpetual  manifestation ; 
the  process  of  the  ever-becoming  manifest  of  the 


46 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


activities  and  attributes  of  the  unmanifest  God. 
This  being  the  case,  Kosmos  is  nothing  other  than 
the  mirroring  in  Hyle  of  the  activities  of  Ku,  the 
Motherhood  of  God;  its  divine  essence  in  all  its 
activities  becoming  mirrored  in  substance  that 
constitutes  Kosmos  in  the  true  sense  of  the  w^ord. 
Novs^  Kosmos  must  continue  as  long  as  the  activities 
of  the  unmanifest  God  continue  to  be  mirrored  in 
substance.  Those  activities  must  continue  to  be  so 
mirrored  as  long  as  they  subsist.  In  other  words, 
in  order  that  Kosmos  might  cease  it  would  be  nec- 
essary that  the  Absolute  God  should  cease  to  make 
or  to  express  itself  actively,  and  as  the  unmanifest 
God  exists  or  rather  subsists  only  in  the  act  of  com- 
ing into  manifestation  it  follows  that  were  it  to  cease 
such  activity  it  would  die.  Therefore  the  Absolute 
God  would  have  to  become  extinct  before  Kosmos 
could  ever  become  extinct.  Kosmos  is  therefore 
as  eternal  as  is  the  life  of  God.  For  this  reason  he 
says  that  Kosmos  is  a  life  that  cannot  die.  It  is  a 
life  that  cannot  die  because  it  is  the  continuation 
on  a  lower  plane  of  the  life  of  God  himself,  there- 
fore Kosmos  cannot  possibly  cease  to  be.  It  ever 
must  be.  This  being  the  case  Kosmos  is  an  immor- 
tal life,  being  but  a  reflection  of  the  life  of  God,  the 
immortality  of  the  Divinity  is  therefore  contin- 
ued in  the  immortality  of  the  Kosmos.  It  cannot 
therefore  be  that  this  immortal  life  should  die  see- 
ing that  it  is  immortal,  as  it  is  completely  bound 
up  and  inseparably  merged  in  the  immortality  of 
the  Divine  Life,  because  Kosmos  is  not  distinct 
from  God.  Kosmos  is  but  the  externalization  and 
manifestation  of  the  life  of  the  unmanifest  God. 

He  further  states  that  all  things  in  Kosmos  are 
parts  of  Kosmos;  and  in  this  we  have  a  distinctly 
Hermetic  doctrine.  A  great  many  schools  of 
philosophy  have  held  that  Kosmos  was  some  sort 
of  a  metaphysical  thing,  a  substratum  to  things, 
and  that  things  were  distinct  from  Kosmos.  But 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


47 


this  is  not  the  Hermetic  view.    Hermes  teaches 
that  Kosmos  is  nothing  other  than  the  sum  total  of 
all  things  born.    It  must  here  be  borne  in  mind 
that  he  repudiates  the  idea  of  creation  and  replaces 
it  with  the  idea  of  birth.  In  other  words,  all  things 
are  born  out  of  Ku  and  as  such  are  born  of  God, — 
not  created, — and  being  brought  forth  they  are  in 
Kosmos  and  Kosmos  is  the  sum  total  of  all  such 
births.    Kosmos  is  twofold;  it  is  the  act  of  being 
born,  the  continuous  sequence  of  being  born,  and 
at  the  same  time  it  includes  the  things  born. 
Hermes  was  far  too  scientific  to  make  any  distinc- 
tion between  the  act  of  being  born  and  the  things 
that  are  born,  because  it  is  evident  that  if  there 
was  not  an  act  of  being  born  there  would  be  noth- 
ing born  and  that  no  act  of  bearing  can  fail  to 
result  in  a  birth.    Hence  Kosmos  is  both  the  pro- 
duction of  things  and  the  sum  total  of  the  things 
produced.   Were  we  to  eliminate  all  the  things  in 
Kosmos  there  would  be  nothing  left  of  Kosmos. 
Kosmos  would  cease  to  be.    Inasmuch,  therefore, 
as  Kosmos  is  the  mirroring  of  the  activity  of  God 
in  Hyle  it  follows  that  such  mirroring  can  only 
take  place  in  the  production  of  things  as  the  formal 
expression  of  the  divine  action.    Hence  the  divine 
life  lives  in  the  act  of  producing  all  things,  and 
likewise  in  all  the  things  thus  produced.  There- 
fore all  things  in  Kosmos  are  parts  of  Kosmos  and 
Kosmos  is  nothing  other  than  the  sum  total  of  all 
things  engendered.   Now,  inasmuch  as  Kosmos  is 
immortal  life  and  that  life  consists  in  the  perpetual 
continuity  of  the  process  of  engendering  things,  it 
follows  that  the  thing  engendered  by  a  deathless 
process  must  in  the  nature  of  things  be  deathless. 
Undoubtedly  it  may  change  its  form  from  time  to 
time  but  it  will  never  cease  to  be  because  its  ulti- 
mate origin  is  the  divine  thought.    The  divine 
being   deathless,   eternal,   immortal,   all   of  its 
thoughts  must  be  deathless,  eternal  and  immortal. 


48 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


As  a  deathless,  eternal,  immortal  thought  has  set  in 
motion  the  activity  that  engenders  a  thing,  it  must 
be  that  that  activity  w^ill  be  continuous,  as  contin- 
uous as  is  the  thought  that  set  in  motion  such  activ- 
ity. This  being  true  it  w^ill  follow^  that  the  activity 
that  engendered  the  thing  being  continuous,  the 
life  of  the  thing  resulting  from  such  engendering 
activity  must  likewise  be  continuous;  hence  the 
immortality  of  all  things  engendered  is  clearly 
demonstrated. 

And  most  of  all  is  man,  the  rational  animal. 
More  than  anything  else  is  man  the  recipient  of 
this  eternal  life,  for  the  reason  that  man  is  the 
most  complicated  and  the  highest  manifestation 
of  this  creative  process.  Of  all  things  engendered 
man  comes  nearer  to  the  divine  prototype  than 
anything  else,  and  the  reason  for  this  is  clearly 
shown,  that  he  is  a  rational  animal,  he  is  the  one 
animal  endowed  with  reason.  Now  reason  here 
must  not  be  confused  with  what  is  ordinarily 
termed  reason, — that  is  the  capacity  to  learn  by 
experience,  to  reach  conclusions  from  data.  That 
is  not  the  reason  of  which  Hermes  speaks.  To  him 
reason  is  the  pure,  a  priori  reason,  that  has  nothing 
to  do  with  data  but  reasons  from  Universals  to 
particulars.  This  is  his  concept  of  reason.  Man  is 
the  rational  animal.  That  is  to  say,  he  is  the  one 
and  only  animal  endowed  with  this  capacity  to  rea- 
son from  cause  to  effect.  As  this  reason  is  that 
which  produces  all  things,  is  the  creative  wisdom 
that  has  produced  everything,  it  follows  that  in  his 
reason  man  is  divine,  he  partakes  of  the  nature  of 
God,  he  is  endowed  with  the  creative  power  and 
for  that  reason,  partaking  more  than  any  other  of 
the  attributes  of  divinity,  he  therefore  approaches 
nearer  to  the  divine  life  of  God  than  anything  else. 
Hence  he  possesses  a  greater  measure  of  divinity 
and  hence  of  immortality  thanMoes  anything  else. 
Therefore  above  all  kosmic  things  is  man  death- 
less, immortal,  eternal. 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


49 


In  this  we  have  the  suggestion  of  the  Hermetic 
Art.  Man's  reason  is  the  creative  power  resident 
within  him.  By  the  cultivation  of  that  creative 
power  he  is  able  to  become  a  creator  himself  to 
the  extent  that  his  Creative  power  has  been  awak- 
ened. Therefore  it  is  through  the  cultivation  of 
the  reason  that  man  is  able  to  reach  this  exalted 
state.  The  Hermetic  Art  is  therefore  attained 
through  the  cultivation  of  the  human  reason.  Such 
rational  awakening  is  therefore  the  way  to  the 
attainment  of  the  art  of  creation. 

2.  For  truly  first  of  all,  eternal  and 
transcending  birth,  is  God  the  Universals' 
Maker.  Second  is  he  [after  His  image], 
Cosmos,  brought  into  being  by  Him,  sus- 
tained and  fed  by  Him,  made  deathless,  as 
by  his  own  Sire,  living  for  aye,  as  ever  free 
from  death. 

Now  that  which  ever  liveth,  differs  from 
the  Eternal,  for  He  hath  not  been  brought 
to  being  by  another,  and  even  if  He  have 
been  brought  to  being,  He  hath  not  been 
brought  into  being  by  Himself,  but  ever  is 
brought  into  being. 

For  the  Eternal,  in  that  It  is  eternal,  is  the 
all.  The  Father  is  Himself  eternal  of  Him- 
self, but  Cosmos  hath  become  eternal  and 
immortal  by  the  Father. 

For  truly  first  of  all,  eternal  and  tran- 
scending birth,  is  God  the  universalis  Maker. 
Second  is  he  [after  his  image],  Cosmos, 
brought  into  being  by  Him,  sustained  and 


50 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


fed  by  Him,  made  deathless,  as  by  his  own 
Sire,  living  for  aye,  as  ever  free  from  death. 

The  first  and  ultimate  principle  is  God,  the  uni- 
versal's  Maker.  By  the  universals  he  means  those 
verities  which  are  everywhere  the  same  and  which 
are  interchangeable.  The  term  is  used  in  contra- 
distinction to  particulars.  In  this  we  have  a  funda- 
mental principle  of  the  ancient  philosophy.  The 
two  principles  below  God  are  universals  and  par- 
ticulars. By  particulars  is  meant  things  and  the 
processes  engendering  particular  things.  By  the 
universals  they  mean  those  processes  which  are  not 
in  any  sense  particular,  which  relate  to  all  things 
without  distinction.  These  universals  are  to  a 
certain  extent  identical  with  the  Great  Supernal 
Gods,  though  not  exactly.  Now  God  is  spoken  of 
as  the  maker  of  the  universals.  That  is  to  say  the 
universals  came  into  being  through  their  having 
been  emanated  from  God.  In  other  words,  the 
universals  are  the  fundamental  attributes  of  God 
projected  into  manifestations  through  Kosmos. 
Now  this  God,  the  universals'  maker,  is  the  first 
of  all,  because  all  particulars  come  from  universals 
and  all  universals  come  from  God.  Therefore  He 
is  first  of  all  because  all  things  proceed  either  di- 
rectly or  indirectly  from  Him.  Eternal  and  trans- 
cending birth,  because  all  births  emanate  from 
Him.  As  He  is  the  bearer  of  all  that  is  there  is 
nothing  left  to  bear  Him.  He  cannot  be  born 
because  all  things  are  born  by  Him,  therefore 
He  transcends  birth.  In  this  sense  it  would  be 
somewhat  more  correct  to  say  She,  because  the 
God  alluded  to  here  is  Ku,  the  feminine  divine 
essence.  After  this  God,  we  come  to  the  second. 
Second  is  He  after  His  image.  After  His  image, — 
that  is  the  Kosmos.  Kosmos  is  after  the  image  of 
God,  because,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  it  is 
God's  image,  that  is,  it  is  God  made  manifest,  and 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


51 


this  comes  forth  out  of  God.  It  is  brought  into 
being  by  God,  is  sustained  and  fed  by  Him.  That 
is  to  say,  it  has  no  source  of  existence,  apart  from 
God,  is  absolutely  dependent  upon  God  for  ali 
things,  and  is  not  only  brought  into  being,  but  is 
continuously  sustained  and  fed  and  nourished  by 
God.  In  other  words,  Kosmos  has  not  been  brought 
into  being  by  God,  but  is  in  continuous  process  of 
being  brought  into  being  by  Him.  As  God  is 
indeed  and  in  truth  the  Father  and  Mother  of  Kos- 
mos, it  must  be  that  Kosmos  will  partake  of  the 
nature  of  his  Father  and  Mother,  consequently 
Kosmos  has  been  made  deathless  by  his  Sire.  That 
is  made  deathless  in  and  through  the  very 
process  of  having  been  brought  into  being  by  the 
Father.  Living  for  aye.  as  ever  free  from  death, 
because  the  kosmic  life  is  continuous  and  uninter- 
ruptedly sustained  by  the  life  of  God. 

Now  that  which  ever-liveth,  differs  from 
the  Eternal;  for  He  hath  not  been  brought 
to  being  by  another,  and  even  if  He  have 
been  brought  to  being,  He  hath  not  been 
brought  into  being  by  Himself,  but  ever  is 
brought  into  being. 

He  draws  some  very  fine  distinctions  here.  For 
instance,  he  draws  the  distinction  between  the  ever- 
living  and  the  Eternal.  The  ever-living  is  not  the 
same  as  the  Eternal,  and  he  shows  the  distinction. 
The  Eternal  hath  not  been  brought  into  being  by 
another,  and  even  if  the  Eternal  has  been  brought 
into  being.  He  hath  not  been  brought  into  being 
by  Himself.  That  is  to  say,  the  Eternal  cannot 
create  Himself,  and  this  self-creation  would  not 
constitute  eternity,  but  this  of  which  he  speaks 
ever  is  brought  into  being.  There  is  the  process 
of  perpetual  bringing  into  being  and  there  is  this 
fine  distinction  vrhich  must  alwavs  be  borne  in 


52 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


mind,  eternity  is  beginningiess  and  endless,  though 
the  ever-living  may  have  a  beginning,  but  it  can 
never  have  an  end.  But  the  Eternal  is  in  perpetu- 
ity to  infinity,  both  backward  and  forw^ard;  ever 
is  being  brought  into  being,  and  yet  this  is  not 
something  that  has  always  been  stable,  it  is  some- 
thing in  perpetual  process  of  coming  into  being 
and  yet  the  process  is  from  infinity  to  infinity. 

For  the  Eternal,  in  that  It  is  eternal,  is 
the  all.  The  Father  is  Himself  eternal  of 
Himself,  but  Cosmos  hath  become  eternal 
and  immortal  by  the  Father. 

This  is  the  diflference,  both  the  Father  and 
Mother  on  the  one  hand  and  Kosmos  on  the  other 
are  eternal,  Ionian.  But  there  is  a  distinction,  the 
Eternal,  in  that  it  is  eternal,  that  is  in  Its  character 
of  eternity,  is  the  all,  there  can  be  no  particularity. 
Being  eternal,  though  the  particular  may  be  ever- 
living,  yet  it  can  never  be  eternal.  But  the  eternal 
must  in  the  very  nature  of  things  be  limitless.  The 
Father-Mother,  the  Absolute  God,  is  Himself 
eternal  of  Himself.  That  is  to  say,  His  eternity  is 
engendered  from  Himself  or  of  Himself.  In  other 
v/ords.  His  nature  or  energy  is  eternal  and  there- 
fore in  no  sense  dependent  upon  anything  else.  In 
a  word,  God  is  not  subject  to  generation,  is  in  no 
sense  generated  by  anything  else.  He  is  the  ingen- 
erate  whose  eternity  subsists  in  His  action.  Being 
in  His  action  eternal.  He  is  dependent  upon 
nothing  apart  from  Himself.  The  Kosmos,  how- 
ever, has  become  eternal  and  immortal  by  the 
Father.  In  other  words,  it  is  the  reflection  of  the 
immortality  and  eternity  of  the  Father  in  substance 
that  constitutes  the  eternity  and  immortality  of  the 
Kosmos.  Kosmos  is  eternal  and  immortal  because 
it  is  the  active  manifestation  of  an  eternal  and 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


53 


immortal  verity.  It  is  this  which  makes  Kosmos 
eternal.  Kosmos,  in  other  words,  is  eternally  gen- 
erated, while  the  eternity  of  the  Father  is  self- 
subsistent  and  not  subject  to  generation.  In  a  word, 
were  all  else  to  be  blotted  out  God  would  still  be 
eternal,  but  were  God  to  be  blotted  out  Kosmos 
would  cease  to  be.  The  eternity  of  the  Kosmos  is 
therefore  conferred  eternity.  One  that  lives  in 
Kosmos  is  the  result  of  another  Eternity,  but  the 
Eternity  of  God  is  absolute.  At  the  same  time, 
the  one  is  as  eternal  as  the  other.  Kosmos  cannot 
disappear  during  the  eternity  of  God.  It  is  also 
beginningless  and  endless.  At  the  same  time  it  is 
an  eternity  that  is  perpetually  being  induced,  but 
this  is  Kosmos  as  a  whole  that  possesses  this 
Eternity.  The  dififerent  parts  of  Kosmos  are  ever- 
living  but  not  eternal. 


LESSON  IV 


The  Eternity  of  Matter 

3.  And  of  the  matter  stored  beneath  it, 
the  Father  made  of  it  a  universal  body,  and 
packing  it  together  made  it  spherical — 
wrapping  it  round  the  life — [a  sphere] 
which  is  immortal  in  itself,  and  that  doth 
make  materiality  eternal. 

But  He,  the  Father,  full-filled  with  His 
ideas,  did  sow  the  lives  into  the  sphere,  and 
shut  them  in  as  in  a  cave,  willing  to  order 
forth  the  life  with  every  kind  of  living. 

So  He  with  deathlessness  enclosed  the  uni- 
versal body,  that  matter  might  not  wish  to 
separate  itself  from  body's  composition,  and 
so  dissolve  into  its  own  [original]  unorder. 

For  matter,  son,  when  it  was  yet  incorpo- 
rate, was  in  unorder.  And  it  doth  still  retain 
down  here  this  [nature  of  unorder]  evolv- 
ing the  rest  of  the  small  lives — that  increase- 
and-decrease  which  men  call  death. 

And  of  the  matter  stored  beneath  it,  the 
Father  made  of  it  a  universal  body,  and 
packing  it  together  made  it  spherical^ — 
wrapping  it  round  the  life — [a  sphere] 
which  is  immortal  in  itself,  and  that  doth 
make  materiality  eternal. 

After  speaking  of  the  nature  of  Kosmos,  Hermes 
next  comes  to  the  consideration  of  the  matter  stored 
beneath  Kosmos.  We  must  bear  in  mind  that  at 

55 


56 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


the  time  of  which  he  speaks,  matter  was  in  a  state 
of  chaos,  for  there  was  neither  form  nor  order 
manifested  in  this  sub-kosmic  matter.  We  are  in- 
formed that  of  the  matter  stored  beneath  Kosmos, 
the  Father  made  a  universal  body.  That  is  to  say, 
by  the  action  of  the  divine  power,  working  through 
the  instrumentality  of  the  Kosmic  Powers,  the  cha- 
otic matter  beneath  the  Kosmos  was  gathered 
together  into  one  body  which  was  to  constitute  the 
universe.  This  voluminous  body  of  matter  was 
packed  together  and  concentrated  into  a  massive 
body.  It  was  given  a  spherical  form.  It  was  in 
fact  a  universal  Egg,  which  was  to  contain  all 
things  of  the  universe  within  its  depths  and  from 
it  they  were  each  and  all  to  be  hatched  forth  into 
individual  life.  It  was  given  this  spherical  form 
by  wrapping  the  matter  round  the  life  which  was 
within  its  depths.  The  universe  is  therefore  in  the 
form  of  a  hollow  sphere  within  the  depths  of  which 
is  enclosed  the  life  which  therefore  gives  forth 
life  to  all  parts  of  the  universal  shell.  Because  the 
universal  life  is  enfolded  within  the  universal  form 
this  life  is  continually  vitalizing  the  entire  struc- 
ture of  the  universe,  and  thus  the  universe  becomes 
a  body  that  is  immortal  in  itself.  It  does  not  derive 
its  immortality  from  without,  but  from  the  life 
enclosed  by  itself.  Because  of  the  life  which  is 
continually  renewing  and  vitalizing  the  universal 
body,  both  in  whole  and  in  part,  materiality  is 
made  eternal,  and  hence  is  organized  matter  in  the 
universe  immortal  by  reason  of  the  life  which  it 
contains,  this  is  the  true  cause  of  the  eternity  of 
matter. 

But  He,  the  Father,  full-filled  with  His 
ideas,  did  sov^  the  lives  into  the  sphere,  and 
shut  them  in  as  in  a  cave,  willing  to  order 
forth  the  life  with  every  kind  of  living. 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


57 


The  Father  being  filled  to  the  full  with  His 
ideas;  for  the  nature  of  the  Father  is  to  think,  and 
hence  He  lives  in  His  ideas;  His  thinking  tends  at 
all  times  to  radiate  His  ideas,  and  in  this  way  to 
diffuse  them  through  all  space.    This  being  the 
case,  the  lives  were  sown  within  the  universal 
sphere.  They  were  received  within  the  sphere,  and 
were  there  enclosed  so  that  they  might  not  escape. 
These  lives  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  life 
that  was  enclosed  within  the  sphere  in  the  begin- 
ning.   Neither  must  they  be  confused  with  the 
small  lives.  They  are  rather  the  great  lives,  or  the 
material  Gods.  They  are  the  Vital  and  the  Etherial 
Gods  as  well  as  the  Terrene  Gods.  They  are  there- 
fore enclosed  within  the  sphere,  so  that  it  will  not 
be  possible  for  them  to  separate  themselves  from 
the  universal  sphere.    They  were  enclosed  in  the 
sphere  that  they  might  order  forth,  or  send  forth  in 
accordance  with  order,  the  enclosed  life,  causing  it 
to  assume  every  form  of  living,  that  is,  to  differ- 
entiate itself  into  the  diverse  lives  that  will  give 
life  to  all  forms  of  living  things.    It  is  this  life 
as  the  germ  that  causes  all  species  to  come  into 
being  in  the  earth.  This  is  the  true  explanation  of 
the  monadic  origin  of  all  the  diverse  forms  of 
terrene  life,  and  this  is  the  sense  in  which  every 
thing  has  come  from  a  germ  in  the  earth.    It  is 
also  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  while  this  is  an 
account  of  the  creation  of  the  universe,  at  the  same 
time  all  the  spheres  were  formed  in  the  same  man- 
ner, and  all  this  applies  to  the  earth  as  well  as  to 
the  entire  universe.   Thus  it  is  true  that  it  is  the 
ordering  forth  of  the  enclosed  life,  under  the  im- 
pulse of  the  lives  that  causes  all  the  forms  of 
living  things  to  come  into  being  on  the  earth.  They 
are  literally  born  from  within  the  depths  of  the 
earth.  The  earth  is  in  fact  the  Mother  and  the 
fecund  womb  from  which  all  forms  of  living 
things  are  born,  after  they  have  been  conceived  and 


58 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


gestated  within  her  maternal  womb.  Thus  is  the 
earth  literally  the  mother  of  all  things  earthly,  and 
not  merely  in  a  figurative  sense. 

So  He  with  deathlessness  enclosed  the 
universal  body,  that  matter  might  not  wish 
to  separate  itself  from  body's  composition, 
and  so  dissolve  into  its  own  [original] 
unorder. 

Because  the  life  was  enclosed  within  the  uni- 
versal body,  and  because  the  great  lives  or  the 
lesser  Gods  were  sown  within  the  earth,  and  the 
life  became  active,  it  followed  that  the  universal 
body  was  enclosed  with  deathlessness,  seeing  that 
it  was  the  vehicle  for  the  manifestation  of  death- 
less powers,  it  followed  that  the  body  itself  was 
made  deathless.  Matter  is  therefore  eternally 
united  with  the  composition  of  universal  body,  and 
can  no  more  separate  itself  from  it,  hence,  matter 
can  only  exist  in  the  composition  of  the  universal 
body.  All  matter  must  exist  in  the  composition  of 
bodies,  and  can  never  exist  in  any  other  way.  Thus, 
organized  matter  can  never  be  dissolved  into  the 
state  of  unorder  from  which  it  has  come  into  order, 
but  can  only  remain  under  the  form  of  organized 
bodies. 

For  matter,  son,  when  it  was  yet  incorpo- 
rate, was  in  unorder.  And  it  doth  still  retain 
down  here  this  [nature  of  unorder]  envelop- 
ing the  rest  of  the  small  lives — that  increase- 
and-decrease  which  men  call  death. 

Before  matter  was  incorporated,  it  was  in  a  state 
of  unorder.  It  was  the  incorporation  of  matter, 
so  that  it  became  corporate,  that  is,  a  part  of  the 
universal  body,  that  brought  it  into  the  state  of 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


59 


order.  While  down  here,  that  is,  on  the  physical; 
plane,  this  nature  of  unorder,  still  persists  in  mat- 
ter, for  physical  matter  is  not  subject  to  the  control 
of  the  Kosmic  Powers  as  is  the  matter  of  finer 
grades.  Because  of  this  condition,  the  rest  of  the 
small  lives,  that  is  the  life  principle  of  every  living 
thing  springing  from  the  life  contained  within  the 
earth,  are  enveloped  in  this  matter  in  its  state  of 
unorder,  and  for  this  reason  are  they  all  subject  to 
the  process  of  increase-and-decrease  which  men 
call  death.  Because  the  matter  of  the  earth  does 
not  freely  respond  to  the  transformative  processes 
of  the  higher  powers,  the  changes  in  it  may  not  be 
spontaneous  as  they  are  above.  This  being  true, 
corporeal  bodies  in  the  earth  experience  are  bound 
to  pass  through  periods  of  increase,  after  which 
they  must  experience  a  process  of  decrease.  This 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  two  processes  are  not 
permitted  to  go  on  simultaneously,  and  in  equal 
proportions,  but  there  must  be  a  period  of  increase, 
follow^ed  by  a  period  of  decrease.  It  is  this  which 
leads  to  the  throwing  off  of  the  outer  shell,  when  it 
has  survived  its  usefulness,  and  this  men  in  their 
ignorance  call  death.  This  teaches  us  a  very  im- 
portant lesson  in  the  Hermetic  Art.  Death  as  it 
is  vulgarly  called,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  a  body 
is  built  up  of  such  gross  matter,  and  held  together 
in  such  rigidity  that  the  forces  cannot  manifest 
freely  through  it,  and  hence  the  transformations 
are  not  permitted  to  go  on  within  it  as  rapidly  as 
is  its  construction,  hence,  after  a  time,  these  life 
forces,  being  unable  to  so  transform  it,  as  to  mani- 
fest through  it  as  a  vehicle,  will  become  destructive, 
and  hence  the  dissolution  of  that  form  will  result. 
Death,  simply  means  that  life  forces  are  not  made 
use  of  in  their  normal  action,  and  hence  being 
permitted  to  accumulate  through  uselessness  and 
idleness,  they  become,  in  time,  disintegrative.  The 
cure  for  death  is  therefore  to  preserve  a  perfect 


60 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


balance  between  the  forces  of  growth  and  of  disin- 
tegration. So  long  as  this  is  kept  up,  one  will  not 
only  not  die,  but  he  will  grow  no  older.  All  the 
energy  within  the  body  must  at  all  times  be  made 
use  of.  None  of  it  must  ever  be  permitted  to 
remain  idle  for  a  single  moment.  If  it  is  utilized 
at  all  times,  it  will  in  this  way  act  constructively 
at  all  times,  and  hence  there  will  be  no  decrease,  as 
well  as  no  increase,  but  at  all  times  the  perfect 
equilibrium  will  be  maintained,  hence  there  will 
be  no  death. 

4.  It  is  round  earthly  lives  that  this 
unorder  doth  exist.  For  that  the  bodies  of 
the  heavenly  ones  preserve  one  order  allotted 
to  them  from  the  Father  as  their  rule ;  and  it 
is  by  the  restoration  of  each  one  [of  them] 
this  order  is  preserved  indissolute. 

The  ''restoration''  then  of  bodies  on  the 
earth  is  [thus  their]  composition,  whereas 
their  dissolution  restores  them  to  those 
bodies  which  can  never  be  dissolved,  that  is 
to  say,  which  know  no  death.  Privation, 
thus,  of  sense  is  brought  about,  not  loss  of 
bodies. 

It  is  round  earthly  lives  that  this  unorder 
doth  exist.  For  that  the  bodies  of  the  heav- 
enly ones  preserve  one  order  allotted  to 
them  from  the  Father  as  their  rule ;  and  it  is 
by  the  restoration  of  each  one  [of  them]  this 
order  is  preserved  indissolute. 

This  state  of  unorder  is  confined  to  earthly  lives, 
for  they  only  are  encumbered  with  envelopes  of 
matter  so  gross  that  this  order  cannot  manifest 


THE  HERMETIC  ART  61 


through  them  in  all  of  their  actions.  The  heavenly 
ones,  are  those  lives  above  the  earth  plane.  They 
preserve  the  order  allotted  to  them  from  the 
Father,  in  that  they  are  all  the  time  responsive  to 
the  urge  of  that  power  which  has  descended  from 
the  Father  and  which  operates  through  them, 
causing  them  to  act  in  accordance  w^ith  that  order. 
Owning  to  the  Cyclic  Law^,  all  such  heavenly  bodies 
are  from  time  to  time  restored  to  their  original 
status,  and  hence  this  order  w^hich  governs  them 
is  perpetually  preserved  and  can  never  be  dis- 
solved. This  will  be  true  of  any  body  that  at  all 
times  responds  to  the  Cyclic  Law^  This  Law  causes 
all  these  bodies  to  return  to  their  original  condition 
and  thus  to  become  renewed,  and  hence  there  is 
no  reason  why  the  form  of  the  body  should  ever 
become  changed.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  all 
such  renew^als  take  place  within  the  body  and 
hence  no  cause  is  there  for  the  discarding  of  body 
in  order  that  a  change  may  take  place  by  the  ex- 
changing of  one  body  for  another.  This  is  true 
of  the  heavenly  bodies  because  of  their  subtle 
nature,  and  of  their  receptivity  to  all  the  move- 
ments of  the  heavenly  order  operating  through 
them.  It  would  be  the  same  in  the  case  of  earthly 
bodies  were  they  equally  responsive  to  the  move- 
ments of  the  heavenly  order. 

The  '"Restoration"  then  of  bodies  on  the 
earth  is  [thus  their]  composition,  whereas 
their  dissolution  restores  them  to  those 
bodies  which  can  never  be  dissolved,  that  is 
to  say,  which  know  no  death.  Privation, 
thus,  of  sense  is  brought  about,  not  loss  of 
bodies. 

He  here  most  distinctly  teaches  the  doctrine  of 
the  ^^restoration"  or  reincarnation,  of  all  earthly 


62 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


bodies.  The  composition  of  a  body  is  the  restora- 
tion to  earthly  embodiment,  of  a  body  which  previ- 
ously existed  on  the  earth  in  the  form  of  a  cor- 
poreal earthly  body.  This  leads  us  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  corporeal  earthly  body  is  not  the  only 
body  which  earthly  things  possess.  The  dissolution 
of  the  earthly  body  is  the  process  which  restores 
the  earthly  embodied  thing  to  a  body  which  can 
never  be  dissolved.  This  means  that  when  the 
earthly  body  is  dissolved,  the  life  which  was  em- 
bodied in  it  enters  and  manifests  through  a  body 
that  is  subject  to  the  heavenly  order,  the  same  as 
are  the  heavenly  bodies,  hence,  to  a  heavenly  body. 
Of  course  this  indicates  that  all  earth  life  is  in 
possession  of  heavenly  bodies  as  well  as  of  earthly 
bodies.  The  latter  is  lost  from  time  to  time  through 
dissolution,  to  be  again  restored  through  ''restora- 
tion" or  reincarnation,  but  the  heavenly  body  can 
never  be  dissolved.  Death  is  then  confined  to  the 
periodical  deprivation  of  the  earthly  body,  but 
does  not  afifect  the  heavenly  body.  The  earthly 
body  is  of  importance  in  that  it  is  the  vehicle 
through  which  an  earthly  life  is  sensible  of  things 
on  the  earth.  When  the  life  is  deprived  of  this 
earthly  body,  it  is  deprived  of  all  sense  of  the 
earthly  realm  for  the  reason  that  the  heavenly  body 
is  not  sensible  of  earthly  things.  As  it  has  no  ve- 
hicle of  consciousness  for  the  earthly  environment, 
it  knows  nothing  through  the  medium  of  sense,  of 
the  earth,  hence  the  earthly  sense  is  lost,  but  it  is 
not  deprived  of  a  body,  seeing  that  the  heavenly 
body  continues.  Thus  we  see  that  nothing  in  this 
universe  can  exist  apart  from  a  body,  and  the  body 
will  be  the  kind  fitted  to  serve  in  the  mode  of  life 
which  any  thing  is  manifesting  at  the  time.  But 
nothing  exists  at  all  at  any  time,  without  existing  in 
a  body  of  some  order. 


LESSON  V 


The  Life  of  Man 

Now  the  third  life — Man,  after  the  image 
of  the  Cosmos  made,  [and]  having  mind, 
after  the  Father's  will,  beyond  all  earthly 
lives — not  only  doth  have  feeling  with  the 
second  God,  but  also  hath  conception  of  the 
first;  for  of  the  one  'tis  sensible  as  of  a  body, 
while  of  the  other  it  conceives  as  bodiless 
and  the  Good  Mind. 

Tat.    Doth  then  this  life  not  perish? 

Her,  Hush,  son!  and  understand  what 
God,  what  Cosmos  [is],  what  is  a  life  that 
cannot  die,  and  what  a  life  subject  to  dissolu- 
tion. 

Yea,  understand  the  Cosmos  is  by  God 
and  in  God;  but  Man  by  Cosmos  and  in 
Cosmos. 

The  source  and  limit  and  constitution  of 
all  things  is  God. 

Now  the  third  life — Man,  after  the  image 
of  the  Cosmos  made,  [and]  having  mind, 
after  the  Father's  will,  beyond  all  earthly 
lives — not  only  doth  have  feeling  with  the 
second  God,  but  also  hath  conception  of  the 
first ;  for  of  the  one  'tis  sensible  as  of  a  body, 
while  of  the  other  it  conceives  as  bodiless 
and  the  Good  Mind. 

The  three  Hves  spoken  of  here  are  the  Hfe  of 
God,  including  the  Kosmos  viewed  from  a  certain 

63 


64 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


aspect,  but  more  properly  it  relates  to  God  alone; 
the  second  life  is  the  Kosmos  and  the  things  pro- 
ceeding from  it;  the  third  life  is  Man.  That  is, 
used  in  the  sense  of  generic  man,  man  as  a  species, 
but  also  relating  to  the  individual  man.  We  are 
informed  that  he  is  after  the  image  of  the  Kosmos 
made — that  is  to  say  the  third  life,  man,  is  made 
after  the  image  of  the  Kosmos.  We  must  always 
guard  against  the  error  of  assuming  that  man  is 
made  after  the  image  of  God.  This  is  not  true. 
The  Man  made  after  the  image  of  God  is  the 
Kosmos,  and  to  a  certain  extent  the  Anthropos,  but 
the  man  that  we  know  of  through  experience,  the 
human  being,  is  made  after  the  image  of  the  Kos- 
mos and  not  after  the  image  of  God.  One  special 
characteristic  of  man  is  that  he  has  mind  after  the 
Father's  will,  beyond  all  earthly  lives.  That  is  to 
say  the  human  mind  has  been  produced  by  the 
Father's  will.  That  is  the  Mind  of  the  Father 
expressing  itself  dynamically  as  will,  that  is  as  the 
will  of  the  Father  is  mind  becoming  active  and 
dynamic  Will  force  which  enters  the  Kosmos  and 
acts  upon  man  through  its  kosmic  manifestation 
evolves  mind  in  man.  Man's  mind,  therefore,  is 
not  of  the  earth  earthly,  not  evolved  from  matter, 
but  is  rather  descended  from  the  Father  through 
the  Kosmos  into  man.  While  to  a  certain  extent 
■  mind,  using  intellect  here  as  a  department  of  mind, 
is  common  to  all  earthly  lives,  yet  man  possesses 
mind  beyond  all  earthly  lives;  not  only  does  he 
possess  a  superior  quantity  of  mind,  but  also  a 
superior  and  higher  quality,  a  more  spiritual 
quality  of  mind,  than  what  any  of  the  animals 
possess.  This  superior  quality  of  mind  is  easily 
distinguished  from  the  quality  of  mind  present  in 
the  animal  creation. 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


65 


The  animal  mind  is  characterized  by  the  abil- 
ity to  learn  by  experience;  all  that  the  animal 
knows  he  has  acquired  through  experience  and 
observation.  His  reason  is  a  posteriori  in  every 
sense  of  the  word.  Man's  mind  transcends  that 
of  the  animal  in  that  he  is  not  dependent  upon  the 
testimony  of  his  physical  senses  and  upon  his 
physical  experiences  for  knowledge.  Man's  mind 
becomes  almost  divine  in  that  he  is  able  to  dis- 
pense with  sensation  entirely,  to  dispense  with  the 
concrete  and  enter  the  realm  of  pure  abstraction. 
The  power  of  abstract  thinking  is  truly  what  char- 
acterizes the  human  mentality  as  human.  The 
ability  to  think  in  abstractions  is  a  clear  dem- 
onstration of  the  divinity  of  the  mind  of  man. 
That  is  the  divinity  of  the  minds  of  such  men  as 
are  able  to  think  in  abstractions.  Those  who  can- 
not rise  to  abstraction  of  course  still  have  the  men- 
talities of  the  animals.  And  as  it  is  this  human 
mind  that  differentiates  man  from  the  animal 
creation,  it  will  logically  follow  that  all  men  who 
are  capable  of  thinking  in  the  concrete  only  are 
animals,  brute  beasts  and  not  yet  human.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  the  ancient  philosophers  became 
so  enthusiastic  over  mind,  over  the  power  of 
thought,  because  they  clearly  realized  that  this 
power  of  abstract  thinking  was  something  that 
was  not  possessed  by  the  animal,  hence  it  was 
something  definitely  characteristic  of  man  as  man. 
For  this  reason  they  very  strongly  emphasized  the 
importance  of  the  intellect. 

Not  only  doth  this  man  have  feeling  with  the 
second  God,  that  is  the  Kosmos,  but  he  also  has 
conception  of  the  first.  Notice  this  distinction 
therefore.  Man  has  feeling  with  the  second  God, 
— that  is  to  say  the  developed  man  has  the  same 
sense  that  the  Kosmos  has,  that  is  to  say  it  is  well 
within  the  range  of  man's  evolution  to  evolve 
kosmic  sense,  not  only  the  physical  sense  but  the 
kosmic  sense,  which  will  therefore  give  him  the 
same  feeling  that  the  Kosmos  has.  Also  he  is  able 
to  have  a  mental  conception  of  the  first  God,  the 


66 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


Absolute.  Man  is  able  to  conceive  of  God,  the 
One  and  only  One,  through  his  mind,  but  he  can- 
not be  sensible  of  this  first  God,  he  has  no  sense 
by  which  he  can  approach  the  first  God,  but 
approaches  Him  only  through  the  conception  of 
the  mind.  However,  he  can  through  sense  feel  the 
second  God,  or  the  Kosmos.  The  second  God,  or 
the  Kosmos,  is  sensible  as  of  a  body,  while  the 
other  is  conceivable  as  bodiless,  as  the  Good  Mind. 
Therefore  man  is  not  required  to  merely  think  and 
theorize  of  the  Kosmos  but  through  the  evolution 
of  kosmic  sense  he  is  able  to  sense  the  Kosmos, 
to  make  it  sensible  to  him  as  though  it  was  a  body, 
to  feel  its  presence.  By  reason  of  this  kosmic  sense 
it  becomes,  as  it  were,  objective,  so  that  the  devel- 
opment of  this  kosmic  sense  enables  one  to  become 
sensible,  conscious  of  the  Kosmos.  This,  however, 
is  not  the  case  when  we  come  to  God.  God  is  con- 
ceived only  as  bodiless  and  the  Good  Mind.  God, 
therefore,  can  be  conceived  of  only  in  our  thought ; 
we  can  think  of  God  but  we  cannot  sense  Him. 
We  think  of  God  first  as  being  bodiless,  as  having 
no  form,  no  corporeality,  as  being  a  condition  of 
infinite  and  universal  diffusion.  Until  one  has  con- 
ceived of  God  in  this  sense,  as  energy,  universally 
present  and  more  than  universally  present,  he  has 
not  conceived  of  God  at  all.  Second,  we  must  con- 
ceive of  God  as  the  Good  Mind,  as  Mind  and  Ku, 
as  that  mind  which  engenders  all  things  by  its 
thought,  as  Absolute  Mind.  And  only  can  we 
think  of  God  under  these  two  aspects,  universally 
diffused  energy,  formless,  and  as  the  Good  Mind, 
the  Absolute  Intelligence.  And  this  is  purely  a 
mental  concept;  therefore  God  can  subsist  to  no 
one  other  than  as  a  concept  of  the  mind. 

Let  this  point  be  clearly  borne  in  mind  and  we 
will  see  the  fallacy  of  most  of  the  religions,  for 
most  religions  are  predicated  upon  the  theory  that 
man  can  approach  God  through  sense;  that  he  can 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


67 


sense  or  feel  God ;  that  it  is  possible  for  us  to  feel 
through  the  cultivation  of  our  love  nature,  through 
the  development  of  our  aflfectional  nature,  through 
a  yearning,  a  longing,  a  reaching  out  of  the  heart, 
that  one  can  find  God.  Such  a  view  is  utterly 
fallacious,  for  God  is  not  subject  to  sense;  he  can- 
not be  found  through  sensation ;  the  heart  can  never 
find  God.  Man  alone  is  capable  of  grasping  God, 
and  it  grasps  Him  through  thought  and  in  no 
other  way.  It  follow^s,  therefore,  that  those  people 
who  profess  to  have  found  God  in  some  other  way, 
know  absolutely  nothing  of  the  God  beyond-all- 
name.  What  they  are  really  worshiping  is  the 
second  God,  the  Kosmos,  which  they  have 
found  through  sense.  Their  religion  being 
sensible  and  not  intelligible,  it  follows  that  they 
are  w^orshiping  the  second  God,  the  Kosmos,  and 
that  there  is  no  trace  of  a  devotion  to  the  first  God, 
the  Good  Mind,  in  all  the  conceptions  which  they 
hold.  This  will  show  the  reason  why  there  are  so 
many  difficulties  in  the  way  of  inculcating  the 
religion  of  the  mind.  The  religion  of  the  senses 
has  taken  such  possession  of  the  people  that  they 
have  no  thought  for  the  religion  of  the  mind.  The 
real  trouble  is  very  few  people  know  how  to  think 
independent  of  sense.  The  all  important  thing, 
therefore,  is  for  man  to  develop  this  capacity  for 
supersensuous  thinking.  And  that  is  the  reason 
why  the  Gnostic  has  always  insisted  upon  the  de- 
velopment of  this  mind  power;  the  subjection  ©f 
all  religious  questions  to  philosophical  analysis. 

Tat.    Doth  then  this  life  not  perish? 

We  have  here  the  question  introduced  as  t© 
whether  the  life  of  man  perishes  or  does  not.  This 
of  course  is  a  very  important  question  as  the 
immortality  of  everything  is  the  burden  of  the  ser- 
mon, as  the  teaching  is  that  no  one  of  existing 
things  does  perish.    The  question  then  is  as  to 


68 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


whether  the  life  of  man  is  an  exception  to  this  rule 
or  whether  this  rule  applies  in  the  life  of  man  the 
same  as  in  everything  else. 

Her,  Hush,  son,  and  understand  what 
God,  what  Cosmos  [is],  what  is  a  life  that 
cannot  die,  and  what  a  life  subject  to  dissolu- 
tion. 

Hermes  orders  Tat  to  hush,  for  it  is  very  evident 
that  he  has  not  grasped  the  meaning  of  the  teach- 
ing given  in  the  entire  sermon  otherwise  he  would 
not  ask  such  a  fool  question.  His  remark  shows 
that  Tat  has  not  thought  deeply  on  what  he  had  to 
say;  that  he  has  not  paid  the  proper  attention,  has 
not  discriminated  properly;  for  he  admonishes 
him  to  understand  what  God  is,  what  the  Kosmos 
is  and  what  a  life  is  that  cannot  die  and  also  the 
nature  of  a  life  subject  to  dissolution.  Had  he 
carefully  discriminated  on  these  points  and  gotten 
a  proper  understanding  of  these  four  heads  of  the 
subject,  he  vv^ould  have  been  in  no  quandary  what- 
soever as  to  the  rrieaning  of  his  father.  The  first 
head  of  the  discourse  is  of  the  nature  of  God,  the 
second  head  is  of  the  nature  of  the  Kosmos,  the 
third  head  is  the  nature  of  a  deathless  life  and  the 
fourth  head  is  the  nature  of  life  subject  to  dissolu- 
tion. All  these  have  been  thoroughly  explained  in 
the  preceding  portions  of  the  sermon,  hence  it  is 
evident  that  Tat  has  not  paid  proper  heed  to  the 
instructions  of  his  father  under  those  four  heads, 
else  he  would  have  had  no  difficulty  in  knowing 
where  to  place  man. 

Yea,  understand  the  Cosmos  is  by  God 
and  in  God;  but  Man  is  by  Cosmos  and  in 
Cosmos. 

We  are  assured  that  Kosmos  is  by  God  and  in 
God;  that  is  to  say  the  Kosmos  is  perpetually  in 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


69 


process  of  coming  into  being  by  reason  of  the  life 
of  God.  God's  thought  and  will,  all  the  motions 
of  his  life,  manifest  as  Kosmos,  therefore  the 
source  of  Kosmos  is  the  active  life  of  God.  The 
word  Kosmos  means  a  picture,  and  it  means  this 
because  the  thought  and  action  of  God  takes  form 
as  Kosmos,  so  that  Kosmos  is  in  reality  a  photo- 
graph of  God,  a  living  photograph,  but  neverthe- 
less a  photograph  of  God.  Thus  it  ever  comes 
into  being  by  reason  of  the  active  life  of  God,  and 
it  subsists  in  God  because  it  is  but  the  expression 
in  form  of  the  divine  thought  and  active  life  of 
God.  Therefore  it  must  be  completely  permeated 
and  surrounded,  enveloped  as  it  were,  by  God's 
spirit,  and  takes  form  there.  Now  if  it  is  true  that 
the  Kosmos  is  but  the  mirroring  in  form  of  the 
thought  and  life  of  God,  it  must  partake  of  the 
nature  of  that  divine  thought  and  life  and  above 
all  inasmuch  as  the  thought  and  life  of  God  can 
only  manifest  in  terms  of  Kosmos  and  must  mani- 
fest in  that  form,  it  will  follow  that  as  long  as  God 
thinks  and  makes  he  must  make  Kosmos.  Further- 
more we  are  assured  by  Hermes  in  other  sermons 
that  God  subsists  solely  and  entirely  in  thinking 
things  and  in  making  them,  that  is  the  very  energy 
of  God,  hence  were  God  to  cease  to  think  and  to 
make  he  would  cease  to  be.  Now  Kosmos  is  what 
he  makes,  therefore  were  he  to  cease  to  make 
Kosmos  he  would  cease  to  be.  Hence  Kosmos  is 
as  eternal  as  God.  Therefore  the  nature  of  Kos- 
mos must  be  deathless  and  imperishable. 

Man  is  by  Kosmos  and  in  Kosmos.  That  is  to 
say,  man  exists  w^ithin  the  Kosmos  and  as  a  result 
of  the  activity  of  the  Kosmos.  Now  it  follows  that 
the  Kosmos  being  the  expression  of  God  must 
duplicate  on  a  lower  plane  the  act  of  God.  Hence 
it  will  follow  that  as  God  makes  Kosmos  as  his 
nature  is  to  make  and  as  the  nature  of  Kosmos  is 
to  duplicate  the  work  of  God,  therefore  it  is  in  the 


70 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


nature  of  Kosmos  to  make.  Man  existing  by 
Kosmos  means  that  man  exists  because  of  the 
kosmic  action,  Kosmos  being  the  reflection  of  the 
generative  power  of  God  it  must  follow  that 
Kosmos  likewise  generates;  if  Kosmos  generates 
man  exists  by  reason  of  the  generative  action  of 
Kosmos,  hence  man  is  the  microcosm  of  the 
macrosmic  Kosmos.  Therefore  the  nature  of  man 
must  be  the  exact  duplicate  of  the  nature  of  the 
Kosmos,  hence  man  will  have  the  same  nature  as 
has  the  Kosmos.  As  the  Kosmos  is  eternal  as  God, 
because  it  is  the  reflection  of  God,  so  is  man  as 
eternal  as  the  Kosmos  because  he  is  the  work,  the 
effect,  the  mirroring  in  individual  form  of  the 
Kosmos  itself.  Hence  life  is  imperishable,  inde- 
structible, immortal,  eternal.  He  therefore  dem- 
onstrates the  eternity  of  the  life  of  man  and  hence 
that  it  cannot  perish.  And  this  is  true  simply 
because  man  is  the  expression  of  Kosmic  life. 

The  source  and  limit  and  the  constitution 
of  all  things  is  in  God. 

The  source  of  things  abides  in  God,  because 
things  come  into  existence,  because  they  exist  out 
of  God.  They  come  into  existence  through  God's 
thinking  things  manifest,  or  thinking  them  into 
manifestation.  The  particular  thought  of  God 
acting  upon  Ku,  or  the  divine  essence,  must 
engender  that  which  corresponds  to  the  thought, 
and  that  entering  into  Kosmos  exists  through  and 
engenders  that  which  corresponds  to  it,  and  so  all 
things  in  general  and  each  thing  in  particular  is 
the  direct  result  of  the  particular  thought  of  God 
which  has  engendered  it,  therefore  is  God  the 
source  of  all  things.  The  limit  of  things  is  found 
also  in  God  because  nothing  can  come  into 
existence  which  does  not  subsist  in  God.  There 
is  no  other  source  of  generic  life.   In  no  other  way 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


71 


can  life  come  into  being.  Therefore  the  thinking 
of  God  is  the  limit  of  all  things ;  nothing  can  ever 
come  into  being  unless  God  has  thought  of  it; 
hence  there  exists  nothing  which  is  not  contained 
in  the  thought  of  God,  which  God,  therefore,  has 
not  prepared.  He  being  the  one  and  only  source 
he  is  therefore  the  limit  of  everything  for  noth- 
ing can  come  into  being  without  having  been 
engendered  by  God.  Thus  we  see  that  dualism,  the 
doctrine  of  a  power  independent  of  and  separate 
from  the  will  of  God  is  absolutely  fallacious.  All 
religions  based  upon  a  dualistic  concept  must 
therefore  fall  down  because  they  assume  a  power 
apart  from  God.  But  as  there  is  no  generative 
power  but  what  itself  has  been  generated  by  God 
and  but  w^hat  has  a  generative  power  subject  to  the 
control  of  the  generative  power  of  God,  it  follows 
that  there  is  nothing  but  what  God  has  directly 
or  indirectly  engendered.  Therefore  the  limit  of 
all  things  is  in  God.  The  constitution  of  all  things 
is  in  God,  because  all  things  are  constituted  in 
and  through  the  divine  thought  and  action  of  God. 
Having  constituted  each  and  everything  it  follows 
naturally  that  the  constitution  of  each  and  every- 
thing is  in  God  and  they  have  no  constitution  inde- 
pendent of  God.  Therefore  we  are  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  God  is  really  all  in  all.  There 
exists  and  subsists  nothing  but  God.  His  thought, 
his  generative  action,  and  that  which  they  have 
engendered.  So  in  the  last  analysis  God  is  all 
there  is.  We  have  but  God  and  his  infinite  muta- 
tions. 

This  truth  is  of  the  utmost  importance  in  our 
study  of  the  Hermetic  Art,  because  it  teaches  us 
that  the  originating  principle  in  all  things  is  God, 
and  further  that  this  originating  principle  which 
we  see  as  God,  is  thought;  that  the  beginning  of 
everything  is  thought;  and  second,  the  energy 
through  which  that  can  perfectly  manifest  itself. 


72 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


Thought  operating  through  energy  and  substance 
adapted  to  itself  engenders  by  reason  of  such  inter- 
activity of  thought,  energy  and  substance,  a 
dynamic  power,  an  active  force,  which  being  the 
expression  of  that  must  absolutely  correspond  to 
that  thought,  and  this  in  turn  makes  manifest  the 
thing  thought  of,  or  rather  the  thought  itself  in 
terms  of  form.  This,  then,  is  the  creative  prin- 
ciple, this  is  the  art  of  creation,  and  when  we  have 
learned  to  make  our  thought  operate  through  the 
medium  of  energy  and  substance  and  operating 
that  way  to  engender  dynamic  action  manifesting 
in  form,  we  have  discovered  the  Art  of  Creation. 
Creative  thought  is  the  real  creative  power,  but 
to  be  creative  it  must  work  in  conjunction  with 
energy  and  substance.  Man  by  the  application  of 
this  law  can  create  himself  anew,  has  within  him 
the  power  of  his  own  regeneration,  and  regenera- 
tion is  to  be  accomplished  in  no  other  way.  Man's 
salvation  is,  therefore,  in  making  his  thought  suf- 
ficiently dynamic  to  perpetually  recreate  his  body. 
The  regeneration  of  this  is  accomplished  by  mak- 
ing thought  energetic  and  substantial  and  causing 
it  to  act  upon  them.  Thought  must  be  the  genera- 
tive force,  but  it  must  act  through  energy  and  sub- 
stance otherwise  it  is  barren.  The  same  principle 
which  is  here  enunciated  is  also  applicable  to  the 
physical  aspect  of  the  Great  Work.  If  you  will 
ponder  carefully  on  what  we  say  you  will  under- 
stand how  a  chemical  application  of  these  prin- 
ciples may  be  brought  about,  and  that  is  the  key  to 
physical  alchemy.  The  wise  will  understand  what 
we  say,  the  cheap  organisms  are  not  entitled  to 
know  anyhow.  However,  bear  in  mind  that  the 
alchemy  of  the  soul  is  the  first  step,  the  alchemy  of 
the  body  is  the  second,  social  alchemy  is  the  third, 
while  physical  alchemy  is  the  fourth  and  last  step 
which  is  to  be  taken  in  our  quest  for  absolute 
power. 


The  Hermetic  Art 

ON  THOUGHT  AND  SENSE 

That  the  Beautiful  and  Good  Is  in  God  Only  and 
Elsewhere  Nowhere 

TEXT 

Parthey  (G.),  Hermetis  Trismegisti  Poe- 

mander  (Berlin,  1854),  60-67. 
Patrizzi  (F.),  Nova  de  Universis  Philos- 

ophia  (Venice,  1593),  14-15. 
Mead  (G.  R.  S.),  Thrice  Greatest  Hermes 

(London,  1906),  Corpus  Hermeticum 

IX  (X). 

1.  I  gave  the  Perfect  Sermon  {Logos) 
yesterday,  Asclepius;  to-day  I  think  it  right, 
as  sequel  thereunto,  to  go  through  point  by 
point  the  Sermon  about  Sense. 

Now  sense  and  thought  do  seem  to  differ, 
in  that  the  former  has  to  do  with  matter,  the 
latter  has  to  do  with  substance.  But  unto 
me  both  seem  to  be  at-one  and  not  to  differ 
— in  men  I  mean.  In  other  lives  sense  is  a 
at-oned  with  nature,  but  in  men  thought. 

Now  mind  doth  differ  just  as  much  from 
thought  as  God  from  divinity.  For  that 
divinity  by  God  doth  come  to  be,  and  by 
mind  thought,  the  sister  of  the  word  (logos) 
and  instruments  of  one  another.  For  neither 
doth  the  word  (logos)  find  utterance  without 
thought,  nor  is  thought  manifested  without 
word. 

2.  So  sense  and  thought  both  flow  to- 


74 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


gether  into  man,  as  though  they  were  en- 
twined with  one  another.  For  neither  with- 
out sensing  can  one  think,  nor  without 
thinking  sense. 

But  it  is  possible  [they  say]  to  think  a 
thing  apart  from  sense,  as  those  who  fancy 
sights  in  dreams.  But  unto  me  it  seems  that 
both  of  these  activities  occur  in  dream- 
sight,  and  sense  doth  pass  out  of  the  sleeping 
to  the  waking  state. 

For  man  is  separated  into  soul  and  body, 
and  only  when  the  two  sides  of  his  sense 
agree  together,  does  utterance  of  its  thought 
conceived  by  mind  take  place. 

3.  For  it  is  mind  that  doth  conceive  all 
thoughts — good  thoughts  when  it  receives 
the  thoughts  from  God,  their  contraries 
when  [it  receiveth  them]  from  one  of  the 
daimonials ;  no  part  of  Cosmos  being  free  of 
daimon^  who  stealthily  doth  creep  into  the 
daimon  who's  illumined  by  God's  Light, 
and  sow  in  him  the  seed  of  its  own  energy. 

And  mind  conceives  the  seed  thus  sown, 
adultery,  murder,  parricide,  [and]  sacrilege, 
impiety,  [and]  strangling,  casting  down 
precipices,  and  all  such  other  deeds  as  are 
the  work  of  evil  daimones. 

4.  The  seeds  of  God,  'tis  true,  are  few, 
but  vast  and  fair,  and  good-virtue  and  self- 
control,  devotion.  Devotion  is  God-gnosis; 
and  he  who  knoweth  God,  being  filled  with 
all  good  things,  thinks  Godly  thoughts  and 
not  thoughts  like  the  many  [think]. 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


75 


For  this  cause  they  who  Gnostic  are, 
please  not  the  many,  nor  the  many  them. 
They  are  thought  mad  and  laughed  at; 
they're  hated  and  despised,  and  sometimes 
even  put  to  death. 

For  we  did  say  that  bad  must  needs  dwell 
here  on  earth,  where  'tis  in  its  own  place. 
Its  place  is  earth,  and  not  Cosmos,  as  some 
will  sometimes  say  with  impious  tongue. 

But  he  who  is  a  devotee  of  God,  will  bear 
with  all — once  he  has  sensed  the  Gnosis. 
For  such  an  one  all  things,  e'en  though  they 
be  for  others  bad,  are  for  him  good;  delib- 
erately he  doth  refer  them  all  unto  the 
Gnosis.  And,  thing  most  marvellous,  'tis 
he  alone  who  maketh  bad  things  good. 

5.  But  I  return  once  more  to  the  Dis- 
course (Logos)  on  Sense.  That  sense  doth 
share  with  thought  in  man,  doth  constitute 
him  man.  But  'tis  not  [every]  man,  as  I 
have  said,  who  benefits  by  thought;  for  this 
man  is  material,  that  other  one  substantial. 

For  the  material  man,  as  I  have  said,  [con- 
sorting] with  the  bad,  doth  have  his  seed  of 
thought  from  daimons ;  while  the  substantial 
men  [consorting]  with  the  Good,  are  saved 
by  God. 

Now  God  is  Maker  of  all  things,  and  in 
His  making.  He  maketh  all  [at  last]  like  to 
Himself;  but  they,  while  they're  becoming 
good  by  exercise  of  their  activity,  are  unpro- 
ductive things. 

It  is  the  working  of  the  Cosmic  Course 


76 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


that  maketh  their  becomings  what  they  are, 
befouling  some  of  them  with  bad  and  others 
of  them  making  clean  with  good. 

For  Cosmos,  too,  Asclepius,  possesseth 
sense-and-thought  peculiar  to  itself,  not  like 
to  that  of  man.  It  is  not  so  manifold,  but  as 
it  were  a  better  and  a  simpler  one. 

6.  The  single  sense-and-thought  of  Cos- 
mos is  to  make  all  things,  and  make  them 
back  into  itself  again,  as  Organ  of  the  Will 
of  God,  so  organized  that  it,  receiving  all 
the  seeds  into  itself  from  God,  and  keeping 
them  within  itself,  may  make  all  manifest, 
and  then  dissolving  them,  make  them  all  new 
again;  and  thus,  like  a  Good  Gardener  of 
Life,  things  that  have  been  dissolved,  it 
taketh  to  itself,  and  giveth  them  renewal 
once  again. 

There  is  no  thing  to  which  it  gives  not 
life ;  but  taking  them  all  unto  itself  it  makes 
them  live,  and  is  at  the  same  time  the  Place 
of  Life  and  its  Creator. 

7.  Now  bodies  matter  [-made]  are  in 
diversity.  Some  are  of  earth,  of  water  some, 
some  are  of  air,  and  some  of  fire. 

But  they  are  all  composed;  some  are  more 
[composite],  and  some  are  simpler.  The 
heavier  ones  are  more  [composed],  the 
lighter  less  so. 

It  is  the  speed  of  the  Cosmos'  Course  that 
works  the  manifoldness  of  the  kinds  of 
births.  For  being  a  most  swift  Breath,  it 
doth  bestow  their  qualities  on  bodies  together 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


11 


with  the  One  Pleroma — that  of  Life. 

8.  God,  then,  is  Sire  of  Cosmos ;  Cosmos, 
of  [all]  in  Cosmos.  And  Cosmos  is  God's 
Son ;  but  things  in  Cosmos  are  by  Cosmos. 

And  properly  hath  it  been  called  Cosmos 
[Order] ;  for  that  it  orders  all  with  their 
diversity  of  birth,  with  its  not  leaving  aught 
without  its  life,  with  the  unweariedness  of 
its  activity,  the  speed  of  its  necessity,  the 
composition  of  its  elements,  and  the  order  of 
its  creatures. 

The  same,  then,  of  necessity  and  of  pro- 
priety should  have  the  name  of  Order. 

The  sense-and-thought,  then,  of  all  lives 
doth  come  into  them  from  without,  in- 
breathed by  what  contains  [them  all] ; 
whereas  Cosmos  receives  them  once  for  all 
together  with  its  coming  into  being,  and 
keeps  them  as  a  gift  from  God. 

9.  But  God  is  not,  as  some  suppose, 
beyond  the  reach  of  sense-and-thought.  It 
is  through  superstition  men  thus  impiously 
speak. 

For  all  the  things  that  are,  Asclepius,  all 
are  in  God,  are  brought  by  God  to  be,  and 
do  depend  upon  Him — both  things  that  act 
through  bodies,  and  things  that  through 
soul-substance  make  [other  things]  to  move, 
and  things  that  make  things  live  by  means 
of  spirit,  and  things  that  take  unto  them- 
selves the  things  that  are  worn  out. 

And  rightly  so ;  nay,  I  would  rather  say, 
He  doth  not  have  these  things ;  but  I  speak 


78 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


forth  the  truth,  He  is  them  all  Himself.  He 
doth  not  s^et  them  from  without,  but  skives 
them  out  [from  Him]. 

This  is  God's  sense-and-thought,  ever  to 
move  all  things.  And  never  time  shall  be 
when  e'en  a  whit  of  things  that  are  shall 
cease ;  and  when  I  say  ''a  whit  of  things  that 
are,"  I  mean  a  whit  of  God.  For  things 
that  are,  God  hath;  nor  aught  [is  there] 
without  Him,  nor  is  He  without  aught. 

10.  These  things  should  seem  to  thee, 
Asclepius,  if  thou  dost  understand  them, 
true ;  but  if  thou  dost  not  understand,  things 
not  to  be  believed. 

To  understand  is  to  believe,  to  not  believe 
is  not  to  understand. 

My  word  (logos)  doth  go  before  [thee] 
to  the  truth.  But  mighty  is  the  mind,  and 
when  it  hath  been  led  by  word  up  to  a  cer- 
tain point,  it  hath  the  power  to  come  before 
[thee]  to  the  truth. 

And  having  thought  o'er  all  these  things, 
and  found  them  consonant  with  those  which 
have  already  been  translated  by  the  reason, 
it  hath  [e'en  now]  believed,  and  found  its 
rest  in  that  Fair  Faith. 

To  those,  then,  who  by  God's  [good  aid] 
do  understand  the  things  that  have  been 
said  [by  us]  above,  they're  credible;  but 
unto  those  who  understand  them  not,  incred- 
ible. 

Let  so  much,  then,  suffice  on  thought-and- 
sense. 


LESSON  VI 


Thought  and  Sense 

1.  I  gave  the  Perfect  Sermon  (Logos) 
yesterday,  Asclepius ;  to-day  I  think  it  right, 
as  sequel  thereunto,  to  go  through  point  by 
point  the  Sermon  about  Sense. 

Now  sense  and  thought  do  seem  to  differ, 
in  that  the  former  has  to  do  with  matter,  the 
latter  has  to  do  with  substance.  But  unto 
me  both  seem  to  be  at-one  and  not  to  differ — 
in  men  I  mean.  In  other  lives  sense  is  at- 
oned with  nature,  but  in  men  thought. 

Now  mind  doth  differ  just  as  much  from 
thought  as  God  doth  from  divinity.  For 
that  divinity  by  God  doth  come  to  be,  and 
by  mind  thought,  the  sister  of  the  word 
(Logos)  and  instruments  of  one  another. 
For  neither  doth  the  word  (Logos)  find 
utterance  without  thought,  nor  is  thought 
manifested  without  word. 

1.  I  gave  the  Perfect  Sermon  (Logos) 
yesterday,  Asclepius ;  to-day  I  think  it  right, 
as  sequel  thereunto,  to  go  through  point  by 
by  point  the  Sermon  about  Sense. 

The  introductory  paragraph  indicates  that  this 
sermon  on  sense  is  in  the  nature  of  a  sequel  to  the 
perfect  sermon.  As  the  perfect  sermon  is  a  dis- 
course on  initiations  and  goes  into  the  whole  mat- 
ter touching  initiations,  it  logically  follows  that 
this  sermon  clears  up  certain  points  that  are  left  out 

79 


80 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


in  the  discourse  on  initiations,  and  which  are  in 
the  nature  of  supplemental  matter  and  more 
esoteric  matter  than  what  is  contained  in  the  per- 
fect sermon.  And  we  will  find  this  to  be  true, 
because  in  the  perfect  sermon  a  great  deal  is  said 
about  sense,  but  the  true  nature  of  sense  is  not  there 
defined.  This  sermon  is  therefore  a  sequel  to  the 
perfect  sermon,  in  which  he  goes  through  point  by 
point  the  sermon  or  discourse  on  the  nature  of 
sense.  Therefore  we  have  a  right  to  expect  Hermes 
to  cover  every  possible  point  dealing  with  the 
subject  of  sense,  and  in  this  we  are  not  disap- 
pointed. 

Now  sense  and  thought  do  seem  to  differ, 
in  that  the  former  has  to  do  with  matter,  the 
latter  has  to  do  with  substance.  But  unto 
me  both  seem  to  be  at-one  and  not  to  differ — 
in  men  I  mean.  In  other  lives  sense  is  at- 
oned with  nature,  but  in  men  thought. 

We  are  here  assured  that  the  difference  between 
thought  and  sense  is  simply  this,  that  sense  has  to 
do  with  matter,  thought  has  to  do  with  substance. 
In  other  words,  they  are  both  actions  of  the  soul 
in  which  an  awareness  of  the  Kosmos  is  obtained. 
We  become  aware  of  material  things  and  condi- 
tions through  sense.  We  become  aware  of  sub- 
stantial things  by  thought.  This  will  undoubtedly 
dumfound  a  great  many,  for  Hermes  clearly  indi- 
cates that  the  man  whose  consciousness  is  purely 
material,  who  knows  nothing  but  the  material, 
never  had  a  thought  in  his  life;  that  all  his  knowl- 
edge has  come  through  sense.  He  has  sensed 
things  but  has  never  done  any  thinking.  Doubt- 
less Hermes  would  designate  our  friends  the  mate- 
rialists as  the  mindless  or  at  least  as  the  thought- 
less.  The  whole  conception  that  he  brings  to  our 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


81 


attention  is  that  all  conception  of  matter  is  sensed, 
and  our  conceptions  of  substance  are  thought. 
Now  if  you  will  study  the  terminology  of  most 
people  you  will  see  that  they  agree  with  Hermes, 
that  they  have  not  any  thought,  that  they  do  not 
know  how  to  think,  that  they  are  absolutely  mind- 
less. They  say,  for  instance,  that  there  is  no  sense 
in  such  and  such  a  statement,  thinking  that  they 
mean  that  it  is  contrary  to  reason  or  to  intelligence. 
They  say  that  someone  has  no  sense,  that  people 
are  senseless,  that  such  and  such  a  statement  is 
nonsense.  Now  it  is  ordinarily  assumed  that  they 
mean  by  this  to  indicate  absence  of  intelligence, 
but  they  cannot  get  by  with  that  proposition.  If  a 
statement  is  nonsense  it  is  contrary  to  sense  not 
contrary  to  thought;  if  a  man  has  no  sense  it  indi- 
cates that  his  power  of  sense,  his  ability  to  sense 
material  things  and  conditions  is  defective.  If  a 
statement  has  no  sense  in  it,  it  is  simply  that  it  is 
not  a  statement  of  the  testimony  of  the  senses,  that 
is  to  say  it  is  contrary  to  material  conditions. 
Common  sense  is  whatever  concept  the  senses  of 
the  people  in  general  will  give  them  of  matter. 
It  is  also  a  common  error  to  imagine  that  one  can 
by  thought  ascertain  material  facts.  Such  a  con- 
ception is  absolutely  erroneous.  Thought  has 
nothing  to  do  with  matter.  All  material  concep- 
tions come  through  sense,  while  all  knowledge  of 
substance  comes  through  thought.  If  one  does  not 
believe  that  there  is  any  such  thing  as  immaterial 
substance  it  simply  proves  that  he  has  never 
thought  in  his  life;  that  his  thinker  has  never  been 
active;  that  it  has  been  out  of  commission;  that  he 
has  merely  been  sensing  things.  He  further  con- 
tends, however,  that  thought  and  sense  in  man  are 
at-one  and  do  not  differ.  By  this  he  means  that 
they  act  simultaneously;  that  is  to  say  that  they  do 
not  occupy  separate  fields  or  zones  of  consciousness 
so  that  one  goes  without  the  other,  but  rather  he 


82 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


holds  that  sense  and  thought  are  interactive,  each 
one  having  its  influence  upon  the  other.  And  this 
is  quite  characteristic  of  the  absolute  monism 
which  is  so  common  to  Hermes;  that  is  to  say  of 
his  unwillingness  to  separate  or  divide  the  uni- 
verse. He  prefers  to  look  at  it  as  a  whole.  There- 
fore he  does  not  conceive  of  substance  as  distinct 
from  matter,  or  of  matter  as  distinct  from  sub- 
stance. They  are  not  in  his  mind  two  things  but 
rather  give  two  phases  of  one  verity.  Therefore 
he  merges  thought  and  sense  so  far  as  man  is  con- 
cerned. In  other  lives,  that  is  in  the  animals, 
sense  is  at-oned  with  nature.  That  is  to  say  nature 
expresses  itself  through  the  sense  of  the  animal. 
The  animal  senses  nature  but  in  man  nature 
expresses  itself  through  thought.  In  other  words 
he  would  hold  that  one  gets  an  understanding  of 
things  by  the  activity  of  his  thought.  Conse- 
quently it  is  evident  that  Hermes  would  not  con- 
sider that  there  are  very  many  men  living  today, 
he  would  argue  that  there  are  a  lot  of  animals 
walking  on  their  hind  legs,  but  not  many  men. 
Because  only  he  who  conceives  a  thing  by  thought 
is  in  his  concept  human. 

Now  mind  doth  differ  just  as  much  from 
thought  as  God  doth  from  divinity.  For 
that  divinity  by  God  doth  come  to  be,  and 
by  mind  thought,  the  sister  of  the  word 
{Logos)  and  instruments  of  one  another. 
For  neither  doth  the  word  (Logos)  find 
utterance  without  thought,  nor  is  thought 
manifested  without  word. 

Hermes  here  draws  the  distinction  between  mind 
and  thought.  He  illustrates  the  difference  between 
mind  and  thought  by  the  difference  between  God 
and  divinity.    He  would  argue  that  there  would 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


m 


be  no  divinity  if  there  was  no  God.  God  is  what 
produces  divinity;  divinity  is  in  the  nature  of  the 
manifesting  essence  of  God.  God  in  action  pro- 
duces divinity.  Divinity  is  therefore  the  activity 
of  God;  the  product  of  God's  action  within  Him- 
self; the  product  of  this,  the  character  of  God  in 
a  certain  sense,  is  what  we  term  divinity.  Now  in 
the  same  way,  just  as  divinity  comes  to  be  as  the 
result  of  the  active  life  of  God  it  follows  that 
thought  comes  into  being  because  of  mind.  Mind 
is  therefore  an  active  principle,  a  generative  force, 
w^hich  becomes  active  in  terms  of  thought. 
Thought  must  also  be  distinguished  from  thoughts, 
for  thought  is  that  process  emanating  from  mind 
w^hich  tends  to  engender  thoughts;  thought  there- 
fore being  the  generative  action  of  mind  and 
thoughts  the  things  generated. 

Thought  is  the  sister  of  the  logos  or  word.  Now 
the  logos,  the  w^ord,  in  this  sense  must  not  be  con- 
founded w^ith  the  words  which  people  speak  that 
is,  with  articulate  speech.  It  is  rather  the  ideal 
form  of  the  word.  It  is  rather  the  tendency  for 
thoughts  to  take  a  psychic  form  which  when 
uttered  becomes  a  word.  The  logos  is  therefore 
the  psychic  prototype  or  archetype  of  a  word.  And 
this  is  the  sister  of  thought  because  thought 
becomes  logic;  that  is,  as  we  think,  our  thought 
naturally  assumes  the  form  of  a  psychic  image, 
which  in  turn  expresses  itself  as  the  uttered  word, 
that  is  expresses  itself  through  the  medium  of 
sound.  They  are  mutually  instruments,  the  one  of 
the  other.  The  logos  or  word  does  not  find  utter- 
ance without  thought;  in  fact  there  would  be  no 
logos,  no  spirit  of  a  word,  were  it  not  for  thought 
giving  utterance  to  this  word.  And  thought  can 
never  be  made  manifest  without  the  w^ord.  In 
other  words,  thought  is  in  the  unmanifest  state  until 
the  word  has  been  found.  The  word  is  what  makes 
the  thought  manifest;  words  are  therefore  the 


84 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


means  of  concreting  thought.  We  think,  but  can- 
not clarify,  express  or  utter  our  thought,  until  the 
logos  or  the  word  is  found  through  which  such 
utterance  becomes  possible.  This  will  throw  a 
great  deal  of  light  upon  the  subject  of  the  origin 
of  language.  In  other  words,  there  exists  no  word 
until  after  someone  has  believed  the  thing  that 
that  word  expresses.  Until  we  accept  as  true  v/hat 
the  w^ord  expresses  the  word  is  not  coined.  Articu- 
late speech  is  therefore  the  means  of  expressing  the 
logos.  The  logos  therefore  when  conceived  out  of 
thought  causes  someone  to  formulate  an  uttered 
word  which  will  express  it.  The  faculty  of  lan- 
guage is  therefore  the  faculty  for  giving  utterance 
by  means  of  articulate  speech  to  the  logos  which 
brings  forth  from  our  thought.  The  man  who  has 
thoughts  which  he  cannot  find  words  to  express, 
whose  thinking  cannot  be  properly  expressed,  is  an 
illustration  of  the  principle  of  which  we  are  speak- 
ing. This  is  the  stage  when  thought  has  not 
expressed  itself  by  means  of  the  logos.  It  is  in  the 
shadow  stage, — the  man  cannot  definitely  express 
his  thought.  This  is  the  relation  between  thought, 
logos,  and  uttered  speech,  and  this  will  give  us  a 
fair  conception  of  the  nature  of  thought  and  its 
relation  to  sense;  always  bearing  in  mind  that 
thought  relates  itself  to  substance  and  not  to  mat- 
ter. Therefore  thoughts  are  not  of  the  material 
but  of  the  substantial.  Therefore  logoi,  or  words, 
are  forms  of  the  reason  and  reason  is  therefore  the 
expression  of  mind,  the  vehicle  of  mind,  just  as 
logoi  are  the  vehicles  of  expressed  thoughts. 

2.  So  sense  and  thought  both  flow  to- 
gether into  man,  as  though  they  were  en- 
twined with  one  another.  For  neither 
without  sensing  can  one  think,  nor  without 
thinking  sense. 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


But  it  is  possible  [they  say]  to  think  a 
thing  apart  from  sense,  as  those  who  fancy 
sights  in  dreams.  But  unto  me  it  seems  that 
both  of  these  activities  occur  in  dreamsight, 
and  sense  doth  pass  out  of  the  sleeping  to 
the  waking  state. 

For  man  is  separated  into  soul  and  body, 
and  only  when  the  two  sides  of  his  sense 
agree  together,  does  utterance  of  its  thought 
conceived  by  mind  take  place. 

So  sense  and  thought  both  flow  together 
into  man,  as  though  they  were  entwined  with 
one  another.  For  neither  without  sensing 
can  one  think,  nor  without  thinking  sense. 

Sense  and  thought  do  not  act  separately  upon 
man,  but  on  the  contrary,  they  are  simultaneously 
active,  and  in  fact  blend  into  one  composite  force. 
They  are  mutually  interactive  at  all  times.  An- 
other point  we  must  bear  in  mind  is  this,  both  sense 
and  thought  flow  into  man.  By  this  we  are  to 
understand  that  both  sense  and  thought  are  kos- 
mical  forces,  existing  independent  of  man,  which 
flow  into  him,  from  without,  and  entering  him, 
awaken  sense  and  thought  in  him.  He  does  not 
hold  that  they  are  original  with  man,  but  rather 
that  man  is  the  Organ  through  which,  both  sense 
and  thought  are  made  manifest.  Hence,  man  is 
negative,  while  both  sense  and  thought  are  positive 
forces  in  their  action  through  man.  The  sense 
referred  to  here  cannot  therefore  be  confined  to 
physical  sensation,  but  must  refer  to  something  a 
great  deal  higher.  Sensing  is  always  accompanied 
by  thought,  and  likewise  is  thought  ever  accom- 
panied by  sensing,  the  two  are  merely  two  aspects 
of  the  one  process. 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


But  it  is  possible  [they  say]  to  think  a 
thing  apart  from  sense,  as  those  who  fancy 
Sight  in  dreams.  But  unto  me  it  seems  that 
both  of  these  activities  occur  in  dream-sight, 
and  sense  doth  pass  out  of  the  sleeping  to 
the  waking  state. 

¥/e  are  next  lead  into  the  question  of  thought 
independent  of  sense.  He  takes  the  position  that 
there  is  no  such  thing.  The  error  which  he  is 
here  refuting  is  due  to  the  other  error  that  sense  is 
confined  to  the  physical  sensations.  This  is  wrong. 
Sense  is  in  reality  that  power  which  brings  one 
into  contact  with  that  which  is  exterior  to  him, 
and  in  this  way,  through  contact,  awakens  the 
action  of  thought.  Dream-sight  is  in  reality  more 
sensing  than  thought,  though  both  activities  are 
present.  There  is  a  continuity  of  the  sense  of  the 
sleeping  state  into  that  of  the  waking  state.  Sense 
not  being  confined  to  the  body,  it  transcends  the 
plane  of  physical  matter. 

For  man  is  separated  into  soul  and  body, 
and  only  v^hen  the  two  sides  of  his  sense 
agree  together,  does  utterance  of  its  thought 
conceived  by  mind  take  place. 

As  man  is  separated  into  soul  and  body,  it  fol- 
lows that  there  is  a  corresponding  separation  of 
sense,  into  soul  sense  and  bodily  sense.  Thought 
is  the  result  of  the  union  of  the  soul  sense  with  the 
sense  of  the  body.  In  this  way,  is  man's  sensing 
made  to  include  the  soul  world  and  the  physical 
world.  The  physical  and  the  Psychic  are  there- 
fore both  matters  of  sense.  Through  the  dual 
sense,  there  is  deposited  in  man  the  germ  of 
thought,  which  is  conceived  in  the  mind,  very 
much  after  the  manner  of  the  conception  of  a  child 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


87 


in  the  womb  of  the  mother,  so  that  the  mind  act- 
ing as  the  matrix  in  which  sense  is  deposited, 
becomes  in  this  way,  fecundated  by  sense,  and  as 
a  result,  thought  is  conceived  within  the  mind, 
from  whence  it  is  born  into  consciousness.  This 
will  give  to  us  a  true  conception  of  the  nature  of 
sense  and  thought.  The  basis  of  all  sensing  is  the 
Kosmic  Sense.  This  sense,  being  sensible  of  all 
things  in  Kosmos,  acts  upon  both  soul  and  body, 
with  the  result  that  it  acts  upon  both  the  body  and 
soul  in  such  a  manner  as  to  there  deposit  this  sense, 
causing  us  to  become  aware  of  that  sense,  though 
as  a  feeling,  and  not  as  a  mental  conception.  This 
sensing  acts  upon  the  mind,  so  that,  being  acted 
upon  by  the  dynamic  motion  of  sense,  it  moves  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  conceive  thought.  Sense  in 
man,  is  therefore  the  process  of  Kosmic  Sense 
acting  upon  him  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  him 
sensible  of  that  which  is  held  in  Kosmic  Sense. 
This  process,  acting  upon  the  mind,  causes  it  to 
conceive  the  thought,  corresponding  to  that  which 
has  been  sensed,  which  is  in  that  manner  born  into 
consciousness.  This  will  show  that  the  conception 
of  thought  is  only  possible  in  a  mind  fecundated  by 
sense,  and  that  this  fecundation  by  sense  is  the 
result  of  the  Kosmic  Sense  contacting  the  Soul  as 
well  as  the  body.  It  will  therefore  follow  that  the 
mind  can  conceive  no  thoughts  which  are  not  the 
reflex  of  corresponding  sensings.  This  leads  us  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  first  requisite  is  not  so 
much  a  matter  of  mental  power  as  it  is  one  of 
sensing.  Mentality  therefore  does  not  depend 
upon  brain  capacity  or  intellectual  culture  half  so 
much  as  upon  a  soul  and  body,  so  sensitively 
attuned  that  they  will  respond  to  the  vibration  of 
Kosmic  Sense.  The  first  requisite  is  to  be  very 
sensitive,  so  that  we  will  respond  to,  and  register 
all  possible  aspects  of  Kosmic  Sense.  This  ability 
win  definitely  limit  the  extent  of  the  mental  opera- 


88 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


tions,  though  of  course  the  mental  operations  may 
not  come  up  to  the  full  extent  of  the  sensing 
capacity.  This  will  depend  upon  the  possession 
of  a  mind  capable  of  acting  under  all  the  impulses 
of  sense,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  conceive  thought 
under  each  one  of  them.  This  will  depend  upon 
the  sensitiveness  and  upon  the  responsiveness  and 
activity  of  the  mind.  Mind  is  therefore  the 
feminine  womb  into  which  sense  deposits  the 
germs  of  thought.  Sensing  is  the  fecundating 
action  which  fecundates  the  mind  with  the  seeds 
of  future  thoughts,  while  Kosmic  Sense  is  the 
fecundator  of  all  minds.  From  this  point  of  view 
the  nature  of  man,  is  essentially  feminine. 

We  have  here  a  very  important  lesson  in  the 
Hermetic  Art.  The  source  of  all  things  must  be 
found  in  nature,  we  can  originate  nothing,  but  must 
merely  duplicate  the  work  of  nature,  though  we 
can  improve  upon  this  under  certain  limitations. 
But  we  must  derive  the  Seed  from  nature.  The 
first  thing  is,  therefore,  to  prepare  a  suitable  recep- 
tacle in  which  the  work  is  to  be  performed.  After 
this  we  must  deposit  in  this  receptacle  a  suitable 
matter  as  the  Matrix  in  which  conception  is  to  take 
place.  After  this,  we  must  have  a  transmissive  ele- 
ment through  which  motion  can  be  imparted  to 
this  plastic  mass,  and  the  last  step  is  to  have  the 
active  principle  of  the  universe  brought  into  direct 
contact  with  the  transmissive  agent.  If  all  these 
elements  are  properly  prepared  we  will  find  that 
the  Seed  will  be  deposited  from  the  Kosmos  into 
our  receptacle  and  in  this  way  will  be  developed 
into  actuality  after  the  manner  of  the  conception 
of  thought  in  the  mind.  However,  do  not  make 
this  mistake,  do  not  imagine  that  you  can  make 
either  Gold,  or  Life.  Life  can  never  be  created, 
though  we  can  direct  the  form  of  the  evolution 
through  which  it  passes.  Gold  is  never  made,  it  is 
born.  We  must  learn  to  conceive  it  in  the  Vase  of 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


89 


Art,  exactly  as  thought  is  conceived  in  the  mind  of 
man.  Remember  this,  the  Seed  of  Gold  is  in  the 
Kosmos,  it  must  fecundate  the  First  Matter  and  in 
this  way,  conceive  gold  in  the  Vase  of  Art.  This 
is  the  Alchemist's  Secret. 


LESSON  vn 


The  Conception  of  Thought 

3.  For  it  is  mind  that  doth  conceive  of 
thoughts— good  thoughts  when  it  receives 
the  seeds  from  God,  their  contraries  when 
[it  receiveth  them]  from  one  of  the  daimo- 
nials;  no  part  of  Cosmos  being  free  of 
daimons,  who  stealthily  doth  creep  unto  the 
daimon  who's  illumined  by  God's  Light, 
and  sow  in  him  the  seed  of  its  own  energy. 

And  mind  conceives  the  seed  thus  sown ; 
adultery,  murder,  parricide,  [and]  sacrilege, 
impiety,  [and]  strangling,  casting  dowTi 
precipices,  and  all  such  other  deeds  as  are 
the  work  of  evil  daimons. 

For  it  is  mind  that  doth  conceive  of 
thoughts — good  thoughts  when  it  receives 
the  seeds  from  God,  their  contraries  when 
[it  receiveth  them]  from  one  of  the  dai- 
monials;  no  part  of  Cosmos  being  free  of 
daimons,  w^ho  stealthily  doth  creep  into  the 
daimon  who's  illumined  by  God's  Light, 
and  sow  in  him  the  seed  of  its  own  energy; 

All  thoughts  are  conceived  in  mind,  conceived 
from  seed  sown  in  the  mind  from  some  source 
external  to  the  mind  itself.  This  must  necessarily 
be  true  because  it  is  through  sense  that  the  seeds 
are  sown  in  mind.  After  being  deposited  in  mind 
these  seeds  go  through  a  process  of  transformation, 
— or  rather  they  stimulate  the  mind  to  action 
resulting   in   the   conception   of  corresponding 

91 


92 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


thoughts.  If  the  mind  receives  the  seed  of  thought 
from  God  it  must  conceive  good  thoughts,  that 
is  corresponding  in  a  measure  to  the  nature  of 
God,  because  thought  which  is  conceived  as  a 
result  of  the  seed  must  correspond  to  the  seed 
antecedent  to  the  conception.  While  just  the  con- 
trary is  the  result  when  the  mind  receives  the  seed 
from  one  of  the  daimonials.  Inasmuch  as  the 
character  of  the  daimonials  is  not  good  but  the 
reverse,  it  follows  therefore  that  the  seed  emanat- 
ing from  the  daimonial  must  be  a  daimonial  seed, 
that  Is  to  say  a  seed  partaking  of  the  nature  of  the 
daimons,  and  this  daimonial  seed  has  started  into 
operation  by  the  specific  action  of  the  mind,  it  must 
necessarily  follow  that  the  mind  will  conceive 
daimonial  thoughts;  evil  thoughts;  thoughts  par- 
taking of  the  nature  of  the  daimons.  No  part  of 
Kosmos  is  free  of  daimons;  that  is  to  say  there  is 
no  part  of  the  Kosmos  that  is  not  occupied  by 
daimons,  the  daimonial  hosts  being  so  numerous, 
so  extensive,  that  every  part  of  the  Kosmos  is  in- 
habited by  them;  hence  there  are  always  daimons 
present  to  deposit  the  seeds  of  evil  thought  within 
the  mind  of  each  and  every  one.  These  evil 
thoughts  must  be  conceived  in  the  minds  of  all 
unless  the  soul  has  reached  such  a  degree  of  refine- 
ment and  spiritualization  that  it  is  positive  to  the 
daimons  and  negative  only  to  God.  This  is  really 
the  only  guarantee  anyone  has, — his  spiritual 
thought,  which  will  establish  the  right  degree  of 
polarity.  Now  we  find  here  a  very  important 
point  brought  out  and  at  the  same  time  one  that 
very  few  realize,  and  that  is  this,  no  man  ever 
thinks  thoughts  which  are  entirely  dependent  upon 
his  own  mentality;  all  thoughts  are  conceived  in 
the  mind  from  seed  sown  in  the  mind  by  beings 
external  to  that  mind.  Either  God  or  the  daimons, 
using  God  here  in  the  sense  not  only  of  the  One 
and-only-one  but  also  in  the  sense  of  the  gods  as 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


93 


well.  Deity  sows  good  seed  in  the  mind,  the 
daimonials  sow  evil  seed,  and  all  our  thinking  is 
the  result  of  a  mind  fecundated  by  the  seeds  of 
divinity  or  of  the  daimons.  A  mind  unfecundated 
by  such  seed  is  incapable  of  conceiving  thought. 

We  are  informed  that  these  daimons  stealthily 
creep  into  the  daimon  who  is  illumined  by  God's 
Light.  We  must  bear  in  mind  that  according  to 
Hermes  the  daimons  are  not  only  those  kosmic 
powers  or  beings,  but  he  also  terms  the  soul  of 
man  a  daimon.  It  is  the  daimon  in  man.  Now  we 
must  bear  in  mind  that  the  daimons  are  an  order 
of  beings  subordinate  to  the  gods,  because  of  their 
creative  power  the  same  term  is  applied  to 
the  human  soul,  which  is  also  creative.  The 
daimon  in  man  is  his  soul  ;  the  daimon  illumined 
by  God's  light  means  a  higher  order  of  soul  than 
w^hat  we  mean  when  we  ordinarily  speak  of  the 
soul  of  man.  It  means  the  soul  into  which  the 
light  of  God  has  shined,  and  thus  the  soul  being 
illumined  by  a  higher  degree  of  enlightenment 
than  what  is  common  to  the  grasp  of  the  human 
understanding.  God's  light  must  not  be  con- 
founded with  God  himself.  Light  is  one  of  the 
rays  emanating  from  God.  Now  this  emanating 
ray  of  the  divine  light  has  shone  into  the  soul  of 
man  and  quickened  his  intelligence,  so  that  it  is 
thereby  illumined  by  this  light.  He  is  the  daimon 
that  is  illumined  by  God's  light  mentioned  here. 
Now^  we  are  informed  that  these  daimons  stealthily 
creep  into  the  daimon  illumined  by  God's  light 
and  sow  in  him  the  seed  of  their  own  energy.  In 
other  words,  although  one  has  reached  that  stage 
of  development  where  his  soul  is  illumined  by 
the  light  of  God  he  is  not  yet  safe  from  demonial 
interference.  He  may  be  inspired,  or  illumined; 
the  light  of  God  may  shine  into  his  soul  and  thus 
give  him  an  illuminated  vision  of  eternal  things, 
nevertheless  this  does  not  prevent  the  daimons 


94 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


from  creeping  in  and  sowing  in  the  soul  also  the 
seed  of  their  own  energy,  so  that  the  energy  of  the 
daimons  will  cause  the  awakening  of  activity 
which  will  in  this  way  sow  seed  into  the  mind 
causing  daimonial  thought  to  be  there  conceived 
and  manifested  in  act.  Therefore  we  can  see  that 
in  reality  man  does  little  or  nothing.  The  teaching 
that  man's  life  is  in  the  hands  of  fate  is  really  true, 
because  man  cannot  think  of  himself,  he  can  only 
conceive  in  the  mind  such  thoughts  as  the  seeds 
sown  in  his  mind  by  God,  or  the  daimons,  will 
inspire,  unless,  of  course,  it  be  the  thought  that  is 
awakened  by  the  senses  and  by  experience  and 
observation,  etc.  But  we  are  here  speaking  of  the 
higher  thought.  And  this  is  the  real  key  to  dual 
inspiration, — thought  of  the  gods  and  thought  of 
the  daimons.  All  daimonial  inspiration  will  nec- 
essarily lead  to  evil  thought  and  evil  deeds,  while 
the  inspiriation  on  the  part  of  the  gods  will  like- 
wise inevitably  lead  to  good  thoughts  and  good 
deeds.  Therefore  the  evil  in  man  is  really  the 
result  of  his  responsiveness  to  daimonial  impulses. 

And  mind  conceives  the  seed  thus  sown  ; 
adultery,  murder,  parricide  [and]  sacrilege, 
impiety,  [and]  strangling,  casting  down 
precipices,  and  all  such  other  deeds  as  are 
the  work  of  evil  daimons. 

The  seeds  of  the  demonial  energy  being  sown 
in  the  mind  by  acting  upon  the  substance  of  the 
mind  causes  it  to  conceive  the  seed  thus  sown;  in 
other  words,  thoughts  corresponding  to  those  seeds, 
that  is  to  say,  daimonial  thoughts,  are  conceived 
and  these  thoughts  breed  emotions  and  the  emo- 
tions actions,  and  thus  adultery,  murder,  parricide, 
sacrilege,  impiety  and  all  such  kindred  evil  deeds, 
are  the  result  of  the  seeds  of  daimons  entering  into 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


95 


the  mind  and  there  conceiving  thought  or  causing 
the  mind  to  conceive  thought  which  engenders 
action.  Thus  sins  are  not  due  to  the  total  depravity 
of  man;  they  are  not  due  to  inbred  sin  from  gen- 
eration to  generation;  such  superstitions  are  with- 
out foundation  in  fact.  Sins  are  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  energy  of  the  daimons  enters  into  man's 
mind  and  entering  there  deposits  the  seed  which 
conceives  corresponding  thought  and  ultimately 
engenders  evil  deeds.  Man  is  responsible  only  to 
the  extent  that  his  mind  is  receptive  to  the  seeds 
of  the  demonial  energy.  To  that  extent  he  is  re- 
sponsible. In  other  words,  he  is  responsible  to  the 
extent  that  he  is  not  perfectly  divine,  to  the  extent 
that  any  influence  other  than  the  thought  of  God 
can  operate.  We  have  here  a  very  important  doc- 
trine; a  doctrine  which  the  cheap  organisms  seem 
absolutely  unable  to  grasp ;  namely,  that  morality 
is  of  very  little  importance;  that  the  really  im- 
portant thing  is  the  spiritual  state  of  the  soul;  that 
everything  depends  not  upon  specific  deeds,  but 
upon  the  degree  of  refinement  in  spirituality  of 
the  human  soul.  When  we  come  to  realize  this  w^e 
will  pay  little  attention  to  what  a  man  says  or  does ; 
we  will  be  more  interested  in  the  scale  of  humanity 
to  which  he  belongs.  Man  is  really  to  be  classified 
by  the  degree  in  which  he  has  approached  the  di- 
vine, the  degree  of  fineness  in  the  mind.  In  other 
words,  there  are  no  such  things  as  good  men  or 
bad  men,  if  you  will  look  at  it  properly,  but  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  inferior  and  superior  types  of 
man.  Man  must  be  graded  that  way,  not  in  the 
ordinary  way  that  is  common  to  the  cheap  organ- 
isms. In  other  words,  cheap  organisms  are  incap- 
able of  anything  but  evil,  while  superior  organisms 
in  proportion  to  the  relative  degree  of  their  supe- 
riority, evolve  the  capacity  for  good. 


96 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


4.  The  seeds  of  God  'tis  true,  are  few, 
but  vast  and  fair,  and  good— virtue  and  self- 
control,  devotion.  Devotion  is  God-Gnosis ; 
and  he  who  knoweth  God  being  filled  with 
all  good  things,  thinks  godly  thoughts  and 
not  thoughts  like  the  many  [think]. 

For  this  cause  they  who  Gnostic  are, 
please  not  the  many  nor  the  many  them. 
They  are  thought  mad  and  laughed  at; 
they're  hated  and  despised,  and  sometimes 
even  put  to  death. 

For  we  did  say  that  bad  must  needs  dwell 
here  on  earth,  where  'tis  in  its  own  place. 
Its  place  is  earth,  and  not  Cosmos  as  some 
will  sometimes  say  with  impious  tongue. 

But  he  who  is  a  devotee  of  God,  will  bear 
with  all  once  he  has  sensed  the  Gnosis.  For 
such  an  one  all  things,  e'en  though  they  be 
for  others  bad,  are  for  him  good;  deliber- 
ately he  doth  refer  them  all  unto  the  Gnosis 
and,  thing  most  marvelous,  'tis  he  alone  who 
maketh  bad  things  good. 

The  seeds  of  God  'tis  true,  are  few,  but 
vast  and  fair,  and  good — virtue  and  self-con- 
trol, devotion.  Devotion  is  God-Gnosis; 
and  he  who  knoweth  God,  being  filled  with 
all  good  things,  thinks  godly  thoughts  and 
not  thoughts  like  the  many  [think]. 

Having  shown  the  nature  of  the  seeds  of  the 
daimons,  their  effect  upon  the  thinking  and  life 
of  man,  he  next  turns  his  attention  to  the  seeds  of 
God.  These  seeds  of  God,  that  is  the  seeds  which 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


97 


are  able  to  emanate  from  God  and  entering  the 
mind  of  man  conceive  thoughts  after  their  kind, 
are  few,  but  they  are  vast  and  fair,  and  good;  be- 
cause nothing  could  be  vaster,  nothing  could  be 
fairer,  nothing  could  be  better  than  the  seeds 
emanating  directly  from  God.  We  might  say  there 
are  three  characteristics  that  are  conceived  in  the 
mind  of  man  as  a  result  of  the  divine  seed  and 
they  come  only  from  the  divine  seed.  These  are 
virtue,  self-control  and  devotion.  It  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  virtue  was  used  in  ancient  times  in 
an  entirely  different  sense  to  what  it  is  used  at  the 
present  time.  It  was  synonymous  with  virile  man- 
hood, with  all  those  characteristics  which,  as  the 
fellow  said,  are  characteristics  of  a  '^shore-enough 
man."  It  was  not  virtuous  to  do  things  which 
would  not  be  manly.  A  man  might  have  no  re- 
ligious scruples  about  a  thing,  but  he  was  too 
virtuous  to  do  it,  that  is,  it  would  be  beneath  his 
dignity  as  a  ^'shore-enough  man"  to  do  anything 
of  the  kind.  Virtue,  therefore,  represents  the  manly 
quality,  the  proud  manly  quality  that  scorns  to  do 
that  which  is  mean  or  low,  that  which  is  not  char- 
acteristic of  the  ideal  man.  And  this  virtue  can 
only  operate  in  the  mind  of  a  man  as  the  result 
of  his  receiving  divine  seeds  in  his  mind.  This 
seed  of  virtue  emanating  from  divinity,  that  is 
from  the  anthropos,  the  archetypal  divine  man, 
w^hen  that  seed  enters  the  human  mind  it  conceives 
virtuous  thoughts,  thoughts  proper  to  a  real  man; 
the  manly  thoughts,  virtuous  thoughts,  and  all 
virtuous  actions  emanate  from  this  virtuous  think- 
ing. Now  bear  this  in  mind,  there  is  none  of  the 
humble,  worm-of-the-dust,  poor  cringing  sinner,  in 
the  virtuous  man.  A  timid  man,  a  meek  man  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  can  never  have  any 
virtue.  A  virtuous  man  is  always  proud,  he  always 
covers  the  ground  he  stands  on,  he  is  sure  of  him- 


98 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


self,  absolutely  conscious  of  himself — of  his  worth. 
He  knows  his  greatness,  therefore  he  must  be 
proud  as  the  eagle  if  he  expects  to  be  virtuous. 

The  next  divine  seed  is  that  of  self-control.  It 
is  this  which  gives  man  the  self-contained,  self- 
mastering  attitude.  That  is  to  say,  man  is  not  car- 
ried away  by  his  passions,  by  his  impressions,  by 
his  impulses;  but  he  dominates  them  all,  he  con- 
trols them;  all  the  aspects  of  his  manifest  selfhood 
are  in  leash,  they  are  under  perfect  control.  Such 
a  man  can  say  truly  I  am  the  Yauwa;  I  am  the 
I-will-be-what-I-will-be.  In  other  words,  it  is  this 
quality  of  self-control  that  makes  the  superman. 
And  this  comes  from  its  divine  source.  It  is  the 
proud  self-controlled,  self-restrained  impulses  that 
develop  corresponding  thought  and  that  enable 
man  through  reason  to  subjugate  all  his  passions 
and  using  them,  but  not  allowing  them  to  use  him. 
The  self-controlled  man  is  not  a  man  without 
passions;  he  is  not  an  eastern  acetic  who  subdues 
or  crushes  out  his  passions;  he  is  full  of  passion, 
but  it  is  always  under  the  rigid  control  of  his  will 
directed  by  his  intelligence,  so  that  he  can  make 
use  of  those  passions  when  he  needs  them  in  his 
business,  but  never  lets  them  interfere  with  him. 

The  other  seed  of  God  is  devotion.  This  seed 
that  is  implanted  in  the  mind  of  man  is  the  tend- 
ency to  draw  his  soul  out  to  God.  It,  when 
deposited  in  the  mind,  conceives  thoughts  which 
naturally  turn  to  God,  which  are  drawn  to  God 
as  the  steel  to  the  magnet.  The  God  power  is  the 
magnetism  which  attracts  such  devotional  thoughts 
toward  God,  hence  devotion  is  in  reality  a  yearn- 
ing after  God,  a  taking  hold  upon  God,  and  we 
are  informed  that  such  devotion  is  God-Gnosis;  in 
other  words,  the  Gnosis,  or  knowledge  of  God, 
comes  by  reason  of  a  mind  that  turns  in  the  direc- 
tion of  God;  in  other  words,  a  mind  is  never  able 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


99 


to  learn  anything  about  God  until  it  becomes  inter- 
ested in  the  subject;  until  God  becomes  a  very 
attractive  subject  for  our  mental  contemplation  we 
can  know  nothing  about  God.  Now  devotion  does 
not  mean  mumbling  prayers,  it  does  not  mean  the 
acts  of  devotion  which  fanatics  think  it  means;  it 
means  a  mental  interest  in  God,  a  yearning  for  the 
knowledge  of  God,  for  an  understanding  of  the 
essence  of  God.  It  is  this  devotion,  therefore,  this 
turning  of  the  mind  toward  God,  which  is  itself 
the  outgrowth  of  the  seeds  of  God  being  planted 
there,  which  gives  man  Gnosis  of  God.  He  who 
knows  God  as  a  result  of  this  God-Gnosis  operating 
in  his  mind  is  filled  with  all  good  things.  That 
is  to  say,  the  Gnosis  of  God  in  the  mind  renders 
it  negative  to  all  the  seeds  emanating  from  on  high, 
all  the  non-demonial  seeds,  and  thus  they  enter 
into  the  mind  and  soul,  hence  the  seeds  of  all  things 
good  are  there  and  the  conception  of  those  good 
things  begins.  He  thinks  godly  thoughts  and  not 
thoughts  like  the  many  think.  In  other  words,  the 
thinking  of  this  one  being  conceived  of  seed  ema- 
nating from  God,  is  godly,  godlike,  or  similar  to 
the  thinking  of  God  the  Mind,  or  of  the  lesser 
divinities.  It  is  thinking  after  the  nature  of  God's 
thought  and  hence,  of  course,  it  is  not  like  the  many 
think  at  all,  because  the  many  have  their  thinking 
conceived  from  daimonial  seed.  The  result  is  the 
Gnosis  is  in  time  entirely  immune  from  the  seed 
emanating  from  the  daimonial  because  he  has  a 
mind  completely  filled  with  the  seed  of  God;  all 
his  thinking  is  controlled  by  them  and  conse- 
quently there  is  no  unoccupied  area  in  his  mind, 
no  part  of  the  mind  that  might  be  acted  upon  by 
the  seed  of  daimons,  hence  no  thought  other  than; 
God  thought  can  be  conceived  therein. 

For  this  cause  they  who  Gnostic  are, 


100 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


please  not  the  many  nor  the  many  them. 
They  are  thought  mad  and  laughed  at; 
they're  hated  and  despised  and  sometimes 
even  put  to  death. 

In  this  paragraph  Hermes  explains  to  us  the 
antipathy  between  the  Gnostic  and  the  cheap  or- 
ganism. There  is  no  greater  fallacy  than  the  idea 
that  a  good  man  will  win  the  love  of  a  bad  man, — 
win  the  love  of  everybody;  there  is  no  greater 
tommy-rot  than  this  nonsensical  proposition.  The 
cheap  organism  hates  the  enlightened  soul  beyond 
anyone  in  all  the  world.  There  is  the  most  intense 
antipathy  on  the  part  of  the  rabble  toward  the 
superior  man.  If  one  finds  himself  hated  and 
despised  by  the  people,  let  him  rest  assured  they 
are  paying  him  the  highest  compliment.  They  are 
incapable  of  appreciating  the  attitude  of  the  good, 
the  pure,  the  spiritual.  It  is  not  only  a  lack  of 
appreciation,  it  is  an  attitude  of  absolute  antag- 
'  onism,  absolute  antipathy.  And  why?  Because 
the  rabble  thinks  only  such  thoughts  as  are  con- 
ceived from  seed  entering  their  minds  from  the 
daimons,  while  the  Gnostic  thinks  only  such 
thoughts  as  are  conceived  by  seed  entering  the  mind 
from  God.  The  result  is  that  the  same  antipathy 
that  exists  between  God  and  the  daimons  must 
exist  between  the  Gnostic  and  the  cheap  organism. 
And  this  is  not  to  be  deplored  altogether,  because 
they  have  separate  and  distinct  functions.  The 
cheap  organism  is  related  to  matter,  the  Gnostic, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  related  to  substance.  The 
cheap  organism,  the  material  man  or  the  daimonial 
man  measuring  everything  by  his  own  ignorance, 
thinks  the  Gnostic  is  mad  and  laughs  at  him.  Be-< 
cause  of  the  Gnostic's  indifference  to  matter  and 
the  cheap  organism's  indifference  to  substance,  they 
are  hated  and  despised  as  weak,  as  inferior,  and 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


101 


are  sometimes  even  put  to  death  because  of  their 
superior  knowledge.  They  can  never  please  the 
cheap  organism,  and  the  cheap  organism  can  never 
please  them.  Any  man  who  talks  about  loving 
everybody  is  either  a  deliberate  liar  or  else  he  has 
no  spiritual  realization.  The  Gnostic  may  tolerate 
the  cheap  organism,  in  fact,  he  should,  but  to  be 
pleased  with  him  is  simply  out  of  the  question.  It 
is  utterly  impossible  for  the  developed  soul  to  take 
pleasure  in,  to  enjoy  the  society,  of  cheap  organ- 
isms. Because  they  are  as  far  asunder  as  the  poles, 
they  represent  two  separate  and  distinct  extremes 
of  existence,  and  this  accounts  for  the  persecution 
of  the  pure  and  holy  by  the  cheap  organisms.  They 
want  to  get  rid  of  them^  because  of  this  antipathy, 
and  in  the  last  analysis,  the  real  thing  that  is  in- 
volved, is  the  war  of  the  daimons  to  keep  the  gods 
from  gaining  influence  on  earth. 

For  we  did  say  that  bad  must  needs  dv>ell 
here  on  earth,  where  'tis  in  its  own  place. 
Its  place  is  earth,  and  not  Cosmos  as  some 
will  some  times  say  with  impious  tongue. 

Here  we  have  the  crux  of  the  situation.  The 
earth  is  the  realm  of  bad,  bad  must  needs  dwell 
here  on  earth  where  it  is  in  its  own  place.  The 
earth  is  therefore  the  place  of  bad;  the  space  in 
w^hich  the  bad  is  made  manifest.  The  evolution 
on  the  earth  for  the  present  time  at  least  must  be 
through  the  bad.  All  terrene  evolution  is  due  to 
the  operation  of  bad  principles.  This  is  not  true 
of  the  Kosmos,  but  it  is  true  of  the  earth.  Now^ 
as  the  earth  must  evolve  through  the  bad,  therefore 
it  must  evolve  through  the  action  of  the  daimons. 
They  are  the  ones  who  conduct  the  terrene  evo- 
lution. Hence  this  evolution  depends  upon  the 
proportion  of  bad  that  is  manifested  here, — that  is 


102 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


the  daimonial  influence.  Now  in  order  that  man 
as  a  race  may  evolve,  that  the  earth  may  go  through 
its  terrene  experience,  speaking  from  the  stand- 
point of  race,  he  must  be  a  bad  man,  and  therefore 
he  will  express  in  his  thought  the  seed  of  the 
daimon.  The  result  is  the  kosmic  man,  that  is  one 
functioning  in  Kosmos  as  well  as  in  the  earth,  a 
substantial  man,  a  good  man,  is  a  disruptive  influ- 
ence in  the  life  of  the  earth.  In  other  words,  he 
is  a  heavy  charge  of  nitro-glycerine,  lyddite  and 
gun  cotton  dropped  into  the  social  fabric.  He  is 
always  more  or  less  of  a  disruptive  influence.  And 
that  is  really  his  purpose.  It  is  not  intended  in  the 
kosmic  scheme  that  there  should  be  very  many  good 
men  on  the  earth.  It  is  after  the  manner  of  an 
aerolite,  a  comet,  or  a  meteor,  descending  from 
heaven  to  knock  the  earth  back  into  shape,  or  to 
shake  and  disorganize  its  crystalized  state,  so  that 
it  will  go  through  an  additional  ferment  as  it  were. 
Naturally  the  daimons  and  the  daimonial  men  do 
not  appreciate  the  value  of  such  disturbing  influ- 
ences. This  being  the  case,  they  show  a  considerable 
measure  of  opposition  to  such  visitations  from  the 
heavenly  world,  and  this  is  the  real  cause  of  the 
antipathy  which  the  daimonial  man  or  the  cheap 
organism  bears  to  the  Gnostic,  or  the  superman. 
Kosmos  is  not  the  sphere  of  evil,  of  bad,  as  is  the 
earth,  but  is  relatively  good;  hence  the  substantial 
man  is  a  relatively  good  man.  Of  course  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  an  absolutely  good  man ;  but  the 
kosmic  man  is  relatively  good,  and  his  goodness 
makes  him  a  menace  to  the  stability  of  terrene 
society. 

But  he  who  is  a  devotee  of  God,  will  bear 
with  all  once  he  has  sensed  the  Gnosis.  For 
such  an  one  all  things,  e'en  though  they  be 
for  others  bad,  are  for  him  good;  deliber- 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


103 


ately  he  doth  refer  them  all  unto  the  Gnosis, 
and,  thing  most  marvelous,  'tis  he  alone  who 
maketh  bad  things  good. 

The  man  in  whom  the  God  seed  of  devotion  has 
been  sown,  so  that  his  thinking  becomes  devotional, 
causing  his  w^hole  mind  to  turn  in  the  direction 
of  God,  so  that  he  becomes  a  devotee  of  God,  one 
devoted  to  God,  one  whose  business  or  avocation 
in  life  is  service  to  God,  this  attitude  will  cause 
him  to  bear  with  bad  if  he  has  once  sensed  the 
Gnosis.  Now  notice,  the  Gnosis  comes  through 
sense.  That  is  to  say.  Gnosis  is  not  acquired  by 
man's  mental  striving.  Gnosis  is  sown  in  the  mind 
of  man,  which  acts  as  a  receptacle  for  its  being 
deposited  there  when  that  man  has  attained  devo- 
tion. Devotion  brings  him  into  that  state  of  close 
contact  with  God  which  illumines  his  mind  with 
the  light  of  Gnosis,  causing  it  to  conceive  thoughts 
under  the  impulse  of  the  divine  light.  Such  an 
one  w^ill  bear  with  all.  For  such  an  one  all  things, 
even  though  for  others  bad,  are  for  him  good.  He 
deliberately  refers  them  all  unto  the  Gnosis.  In 
other  words,  the  Gnostic  is  so  wise  that  he  realizes 
every  bad  thing  serves  a  good  purpose.  He  realizes 
that  all  evil  is  good  in  the  making.  That  is  to  say 
that  good  is  bound  to  come  out  of  bad,  of  evil ;  that 
the  bad  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  evolution 
of  matter;  hence  he  knows  that  the  cheap  organ- 
isms who  are  poking  fun  at  him  will  be  Gnostics 
just  like  him  in  the  course  of  about  thirty  thousand 
years,  and  he  knows  that  they  would  not  be  Gnos- 
tics then  if  they  were  not  bad  men  now.  He  knows 
that  this  very  bad  principle  is  the  principle  of 
terrene  evolution,  that  matter  can  be  evolved  in 
no  other  way;  therefore  he  realizes  that  the  bad 
man  is  a  man  who  can  only  evolve  through  being 
bad,  consequently  he  does  not  condemn  the  bad 


104 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


man,  he  does  not  hate  him,  he  simply  realizes 
that  the  bad  man  by  being  bad  and  as 
mean  as  he  can  be  is  doing  the  very  best  he 
can  under  the  circumstances,  and  that  such 
bad  people  are  absolutely  necessary  for  the  work 
in  the  world,  for  the  material  progress  of  the 
world.  That  is  another  thing  that  we  must  bear 
in  mind.  The  principal  function  of  man  at  the 
present  stage  of  evolution  is  the  cultivation  and 
exploitation  of  the  earth;  the  development  of  na- 
ture; this  is  his  principal  function.  But  if  he  had 
any  sense  he  would  not  do  it,  he  would  not  waste 
his  valuable  time  on  such  things.  Consequently 
it  is  very  fortunate  that  the  vast  majority  of  the 
human  family  is  evil;  because  they  are  here  to 
subdue  the  earth,  to  harness  the  physical  powers 
of  the  earth ;  yet  such  work  will  only  be  performed 
by  one  who  does  not  see  into  the  substantial  realm; 
consequently  all  this  bad  serves  a  wonderfully  good 
purpose;  it  serves  to  transform  all  matter.  So  the 
Gnostic  deliberately  refers  them  all  unto  the 
Gnosis.  That  is  to  say,  he  looks  at  these  processes 
of  bad,  and  these  bad  people  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  light,  which  the  Gnosis  throws  upon  the  sub- 
ject. He  realizes  that  the  man  is  a  workman  who 
fs  doing  some  particular  work,  and  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  Gnosis  we  are  able  to  see  the  relation 
which  that  particular  work  will  bear  to  the  fin- 
ished product.  The  most  marvelous  thing  of  all 
is  that  it  is  the  Gnostic  alone  who  makes  all  things 
good.  Here  we  have  the  subtle  alchemy  of  the 
Gnostic  life,  that  mental  alchemy  which  causes  the 
Gnostic  to  see  the  bad  as  good  by  seeing  that  it  is 
but  the  crude  form  of  a  good  condition  that  is 
going  to  be  brought  about  by  and  by;  by  seeing 
that  it  is  a  stage  in  the  transaction  and  looking  at 
it  as  though  it  had  accomplished  that,  seeing  the 
end  from  the  beginning,  as  it  were;  looking  at 
everything  not  as  a  thing  in  itself,  but  as  a  part  of 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


105 


the  sequence,  a  stage  in  the  course  of  development. 
Therefore  all  things  are  good  to  him  because  they 
are  steps  in  the  process  which  is  bound  to  turn  out 
good  in  the  end.  Therefore  to  the  Gnostic  all  is 
good.  And  here  we  are  able  to  see  where  the 
Gnostic  rises  superior  to  all  other  men.  He  knows 
that  the  end  justifies  the  means,  because  the  means 
is  always  for  the  sake  of  the  realization  of  the  end, 
that  is  all  that  things  exist  for.  Consequently  he 
may  do  things  which  to  others  would  be  very  bad 
but  to  him  they  are  perfectly  good.  Things  that 
would  be  criminal  and  sinful  in  the  cheap  organ- 
ism, are  quite  virtuous  and  proper  in  a  Gnostic, 
because  the  Gnostic  does  all  he  does  as  a  means  of 
realizing  the  good;  therefore  through  the  appli- 
cation of  his  wisdom  and  understanding  which  he 
has  due  to  his  superior  unfoldment,  he  is  able  to 
take  all  evil  conditions  and  transmute  them  into 
good  influences,  by  using  them  as  a  means  of  realiz- 
ing the  good.  Hence  the  Gnostic  is  above  good 
and  evil,  the  categories  of  right  and  wrong  have 
no  existence  for  him,  seeing  that  he  is  the  soldier 
of  truth  and  right  in  the  absolute.  Consequently 
whatever  he  does  is  right.  The  Gnostic  can  do  no 
wrong.  Therefore  the  world  hates  the  Gnostic, 
who  is  above  their  moral  code.  The  one  who 
stands  so  high  that  nothing  that  he  can  do  can  fail 
to  be  better  than  the  best  that  is  done  by  anyone 
else  is  a  menace  to  the  liberty  of  the  host  of  cheap 
organisms  because  he  stands  above  them  in  every 
sense  of  the  word.  His  alchemy  is  one  of  mind, 
one  of  thought,  of  intelligent  direction.  He  is  able 
through  the  power  of  his  will  to  cause  influences 
which  otherwise  would  work  for  evil,  to  attain  to 
the  realization  of  the  highest  good.  Thus  the 
Gnostic  is  the  great  alchemist  of  the  mind  and  at 
the  same  time  is  he  the  projectile  that  explodes 
and  disintegrates  the  shams  of  society,  scattering 


106 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


to  the  four  winds  the  crystallized  forms.  Thus  by 
disrupting  them  he  forces  them  to  again  find 
adjustment.  This  is  the  true  function  of  the  Gnos- 
tic, the  alchemist  of  the  mind. 


LESSON  VIII 


The  Kosmic  Course 

5.  But  I  return  once  more  to  the  Dis- 
course {Logos)  on  Sense.  That  sense  doth 
share  with  thought  in  man,  doth  constitute 
him  man.  But  'tis  not  [every]  man,  as  I  have 
said,  who  benefits  by  thought;  for  this  man 
is  material,  that  other  one  substantial. 

For  the  material  man,  as  I  have  said,  [con- 
sorting] with  the  bad,  doth  have  his  seed  of 
thought  from  daimons;  while  the  substan- 
tial men  [consorting]  with  the  Good,  are 
saved  by  God. 

Now  God  is  Maker  of  all  things,  and  in 
His  making,  He  maketh  all  [at  last]  like  to 
Himself;  but  they,  while  they're  becoming 
good  by  exercise  of  their  activity,  are  unpro- 
ductive things. 

It  is  the  working  of  the  Cosmic  Course 
that  maketh  their  becomings  what  they  are, 
befouling  some  of  them  with  bad  and  others 
of  them  making  clean  with  good. 

For  Cosmos,  too,  Asclepius,  possesseth 
sense-and-thought  peculiar  to  itself,  not  like 
to  that  of  man ;  'tis  not  so  manifold,  but  as 
it  were  a  better  and  a  simpler  one. 

But  I  return  once  more  to  the  Discourse 
(Logos)  on  Sense.  That  sense  doth  share 
Wixh  thought  in  man,  doth  constitute  him 
man.    But  'tis  not  [every]  man,  as  I  have 

107 


108 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


said,  who  benefits  by  thought;  for  this  man 
is  material,  that  other  one  substantial. 

The  sharing  of  sense  and  thought,  that  is  the 
mutual  interrelation  of  sense  and  thought  in  the 
conception  of  consciousness,  is  what  constitutes  the 
human  nature.  Without  this  combination,  man 
would  not  be  man,  but  merely  one  of  the  animal 
creation.  The  distinction  between  the  two  is  in 
this,  in  the  animals,  sense  causes  the  universe  or 
nature  to  impress  itself  directly  upon  the  animal. 
This  direct  impression  of  nature  upon  the  animal 
through  sense,  constitutes  what  we  call  instinct, 
hence  the  actions  of  the  animal  are  instinctive  and 
impulsive.  In  man,  sense  acts  through  the  medium 
of  thought,  awakening  corresponding  thoughts, 
and  these  enter  the  consciousness,  and  hence,  in- 
stead of  man  having  an  instinctive  sense  of  nature, 
he  forms  an  intelligent  concept  of  nature.  It  is 
this  intelligent  rather  than  instinctive  action  which 
distinguishes  man  as  man  and  not  as  animal.  At 
the  same  time  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  all  men 
are  not  benefitted  by  thought.  There  are  two  dis- 
tinct classes  of  men,  material  men  and  substantial 
men.  As  thought  is  related  to  substance,  it  will 
follow  that  the  material  man  is  unable  to 
do  any  real  thinking.  To  grasp  this,  we  must 
understand  the  nature  of  the  thinking  process. 
While  it  is  true  that  it  is  the  action  of  sense  upon 
the  mind  that  causes  the  conception  of  thought, 
but  at  the  same  time  it  will  never  do  to  assume 
that  a  thought  is  merely  a  picture  of  an  object 
photographed  upon  the  mind  by  sense.  The 
thought  is  conceived  in  the  mind,  and  is  therefore 
composed  of  the  substance  of  the  mind  itself.  The 
thought  is  therefore,  in  the  order  of  a  substantial 
correspondent  of  the  thing  sensed,  and  hence  it  is 
related  to  the  substantial  operation  back  of  the 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


109 


thing  sensed,  it  is  hence  much  more  accurate  than 
is  sense.  The  function  of  sense  then,  is  to  get  at 
the  forms  of  things,  while  the  function  of  thought 
is  to  get  at  their  essences.  Now,  if  man  is  sub- 
stantial, his  most  active  part  is  the  soul,  which 
being  substantial  and  not  material,  will  give  ample 
opportunity  for  the  conception  of  thought,  while 
if  one  is  material,  his  body  being  the  most  im- 
portant and  active  portion  of  his  being,  there  will 
be  little  opportunity  for  the  conception  of  thought, 
and  this  being  the  case,  in  the  material  man 
thought  does  little  more  than  to  perpetuate  the 
images  presented  through  sense.  Thus  the  material 
man  has  not  the  benefit  of  the  mental  quintessence 
of  sense,  which  constitutes  true  thought,  and  which 
is  the  principle  characteristic  of  the  substantial 
man.  Even  when  thought  is  in  a  measure  present 
in  the  material  man,  it  does  not  elevate  him  as  it 
does  the  substantial  man,  for  his  thought  being 
material  and  not  substantial,  he  has  no  conception 
of  the  substance  of  things. 

For  the  material  man,  as  I  have  said,  [con- 
sorting] with  the  bad,  doth  have  his  seed  of 
thought  from  daimons;  while  the  substan- 
tial men  [consorting]  with  the  Good,  are 
saved  by  God. 

The  material  man  can  have  no  thought  of  any- 
thing other  than  the  earth  life  and  experience.  To 
him  the  material  is  the  all.  To  him,  facts  are  all 
that  there  are,  hence  his  consciousness  is  filled  up 
with  material  facts.  As  these  relate  to  the  bad 
alone,  he  has  no  concept  of  the  substantial  or  the 
good,  and  thus,  thinking  only  of  the  bad,  that  is, 
of  the  material,  the  mind  is  polarized  entirely  with 
the  daimons.  A  mind  which  recognizes  only  the 
m.aterial,  soon  leads  to  a  character  that  is  com- 


110 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


pletely  material  even  in  its  aspirations.  Such  an 
one,  failing  to  realize  that  there  is  any  thing  other 
than  the  material,  naturally  comes  to  the  point 
where  he  seeks  for  the  material  as  the  one  thing 
needful.  This  causes  such  an  one  to  choose  the 
material  realm,  which  is  under  the  control  of  the 
daimons,  and  of  course  subjects  him  to  them.  This 
being  the  case,  all  the  seed  of  his  thought  is  from 
the  daimons,  and  thus,  his  thought  is  purely 
daimonial  in  as  much  as  the  seed  which  conceives 
all  his  thoughts  are  of  daimonial  origin.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  substantial  man,  functioning  in  the 
soul,  sees  the  substantial  rather  than  the  material. 
This  leads  him  to  a  metaphysical  view  of  nature, 
which  causes  him  to  live  in  a  world  of  ideas  rather 
than  in  one  of  facts.  This  enables  him  to  function 
in  the  higher  regions  of  Kosmos,  leading  a  life  in 
which  the  consciousness  is  largely  substantial.  As 
a  result,  he  becomes  largely  indifferent  to  material 
things,  iand  in  proportion  the  substantial  becomes 
more  and  more  important.  In  the  course  of  time, 
he  comes  to  see  in  the  ideal  the  one  thing  needful. 
Having  become  indifferent  to  the  material,  the 
bad,  he  of  course  becomes  the  more  attached  to  the 
substantial  and  hence  to  the  Good.  This  leads 
him  into  a  state  of  polarity  with  the  Good,  with 
the  result  that  his  mind  being  closed  to  the  seed 
of  the  daimons,  it  is  now  open  to  the  seed  of  God, 
hence  all  his  seed  of  thought  is  derived  from  God. 
This  causes  him  to  think  in  the  divine  manner,  and 
hence  he  is  saved  by  God,  that  is,  the  seed  of  God, 
conceives  in  the  mind,  kindred  thoughts,  so  that 
his  mind  is  completely  closed  to  the  seed  of  the 
daimons.  He  is  thus  saved  from  the  influence  of 
the  daimons,  by  having  his  mind  under  the  con- 
trol of  God. 


Now  God  is  Maker  of  all  things,  and  in 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


111 


His  making,  He  maketh  all  [at  last]  like  to 
Himself;  but  they,  while  they're  becoming 
good  by  exercise  of  their  activity,  are  unpro- 
ductive things. 

God  is  the  maker  of  everything.  Nothing  comes 
into  being,  save  that  which  He  has  made.  As  all 
things  are  the  result  of  the  Ideas  of  God,  it  follows 
that  their  real  being  is  in  the  divine  idea  that  origi- 
nated them.  They  subsist  in  the  divine  mind  at 
a  time  anterior  to  that  during  which  they  exist 
out  of  it.  Living  in  the  Divine  Idea  at  first  they 
are  divine,  and,  while  they  are  degraded  through 
their  course  of  mutation  in  Kosmos,  they  are  never- 
theless destined  in  the  end  to  attain  that  Ideal 
Divinity  which  was  theirs  in  the  beginning.  Be- 
fore they  can  reach  that  state,  they  must  pass 
through  a  period  of  evolution  in  Kosmos,  during 
which  time  they  will  purge  out  the  bad  from  their 
composition,  and  ultimately  attain  the  status  of 
the  good.  It  is  through  the  exercise  of  their 
activity  that  all  bad  things  become  good.  Good- 
ness is  therefore,  merely  the  result  of  growth  in 
the  bad  things.  During  this  time,  however,  they 
can  produce  nothing.  The  production  of  any- 
thing will  mean  their  ceasing  to  become  good  for 
the  time  being  at  least.  They  are  merely  evolving 
themselves  into  the  good  state. 

It  is  the  working  of  the  Cosmic  Course 
that  maketh  their  becomings  what  they  are, 
befouling  some  of  them  with  bad  and  others 
of  them  making  clean  with  good. 

The  working  of  the  Kosmic  Course  has  for  its 
purpose  the  perfecting  and  evolution  of  the 
Kosmos  as  a  whole.  It  is  not  concerned  with  the 
effect  of  its  evolutions  upon  any  thing  in  particu- 


112 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


lar,  save  as  they  effect  the  evolution  of  the  Kosmos 
as  a  whole.  To  this  end,  some  things  relatively 
good,  that  is,  substantial,  are  degraded  into  ma- 
terial forms,  and  in  that  v^ay  befouled  with  bad, 
in  a  word,  manifesting  the  bad  quality  of  matter. 
At  the  same  time,  other  things  which  are  bad, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  they  are  in  material  form, 
are  purged  of  their  materiality,  and  hence  of  their 
badness,  and  are  made  clean  and  good.  In  this 
way,  we  are  able  to  see  the  process  of  transmuta- 
tion which  is  ever  going  on,  the  bad  being  trans- 
muted into  good,  and  in  like  manner  the  good 
being  ever  transmuted  into  bad.  It  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  the  purpose  of  the  Kosmic  Course 
is  the  perfection  of  all  things  as  an  unit,  and  hence 
the  fate  of  a  particular  thing  is  of  no  moment, 
except  as  its  fate  effects  the  work  of  the  Kosmic 
Course.  As  the  bad,  that  is  the  material,  is  trans- 
muted into  the  good,  that  is  the  substantial,  it  tends 
to  effect  the  status  of  matter  in  general,  causing  it 
to  be  gradually  transformed  until  it  approaches 
nearer  and  nearer  to  the  substantial  state.  In  like 
manner,  when  the  good,  or  substantial  is  driven 
into  the  bad  or  material  state,  it  carries  with  it 
a  considerable  measure  of  the  energy  of  the  sub- 
stantial condition,  which  being  imprisoned  in  mat- 
ter, seeks  to  return  to  the  substantial  condition. 
This  energy,  in  its  efforts  to  escape  from  the  bond 
of  matter,  acts  upon  the  matter  holding  it,  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  gradually  transform  it,  and  thus 
matter  is  in  process  of  transmutation  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  substantial  condition.  The  result  is, 
the  working  of  the  Kosmic  Course,  while  it  is  det- 
rimental to  the  well  being  of  the  things  themselves 
as  they  are  befouled  with  bad,  nevertheless,  it  tends 
to  the  substantialization  of  matter  and  the  trans- 
mutation of  the  bad  into  the  condition  of  the  good. 
The  Kosmic  Course  is  therefore,  nothing  other 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


113 


than  the  course  of  the  Alchemicalization  of  mat- 
ter, and  all  things,  have  their  place  in  that  process 
of  transmutation.  Kosmos  is  the  great  Alchemist, 
and  the  status  of  every  thing  is  but  the  temporary 
condition  resulting  from  the  process  of  Kosmic 
Transmutation.  Thus,  while  all  things  are  good 
in  the  beginning,  and  will  be  good  in  the  end,  each 
thing  passes  through  a  process  of  becoming  bad, 
abides  in  a  state  of  badness,  and  passes  through  a 
process  of  becoming  good  again,  as  a  result  of  the 
effect  which  the  Kosmic  Course  has  upon  it.  Bad- 
ness is  therefore  a  state  of  development  which 
every  thing  must  go  through.  The  purpose  of 
which  is  the  spiritualization  of  matter  and  the  final 
elimination  of  bad  from  existence.  All  things,  no 
matter  how  bad  are  therefore,  doing  their  part  in 
the  deliverance  of  the  universe  from  the  rule  of 
bad.  We  may  draw  from  this  a  practical  lesson, 
man  should  above  all  things  avoid  being  too  good. 
That  is  to  say,  one  should  avoid  becoming  so  good 
that  he  is  good  for  nothing.  Remember,  your 
function  is  to  spiritualize  the  material  world,  not 
to  be  a  pure  spirit.  This  being  the  case,  avoid 
becoming  so  spiritual  that  you  can  have  no  pos- 
sible influence  upon  matter.  If  you  do  this,  you 
w^ll  be  of  no  earthly  use,  and  the  sooner  you  die 
and  go  to  heaven,  where  you  belong,  the  better. 
We  have  no  use  for  Saints  in  this  world,  what  we 
require  is  real  live,  red  blooded  men  and  women. 
Men  and  women  who  are  not  too  spiritual  to  fight, 
to  struggle  and  to  do  their  part  in  the  spiritualiza- 
tion of  matter  and  hence  in  the  regeneration  of  the 
universe.  The  saints  all  belong  in  heaven,  what 
we  want  on  earth  is  men.  In  other  words,  every 
one  must  be  a  Alchemist  in  his  own  proper  field, 
small  as  it  may  be.  This  is  the  true  function  of 
all  life,  Alchemicalization,  and  above  all,  is  it  the 
work  of  man  to  transmute  matter,  and  bring  it  a 
little  closer  to  the  spiritual  status.   In  other  words, 


114 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


the  type  of  men  that  are  most  needed  in  the  world 
are  Hermetic  Artists.  Your  work  is  not  to  pre- 
pare for  heaven  but  to  stay  on  the  earth,  and  trans- 
mute it  into  the  heavenly  state,  and  stay  on  the  job 
until  it  is  done. 

For  Cosmos,  too,  Asclepius,  possesseth 
sense-and-thought  peculiar  to  itself,  not  like 
to  that  of  man,  'tis  not  so  manifold,  but  as 
it  were  a  better  and  a  simpler  one. 

Sense-and-thought  are  not  confined  to  man,  but 
are  common  to  the  Kosmos  as  well,  the  sense-and- 
thought  of  the  Kosmos  is  one  peculiar  to  the  Kos- 
mos, we  do  not  find  the  like  of  it  anywhere  else. 
It  is  this  sense-and-thought  of  the  Kosmos  that 
directs  all  the  Kosmic  operations.  It  is  not  so 
manifold  as  in  the  case  of  man,  seeing  that  its  func- 
tions are  not  so  numerous,  it  is  a  simpler  sense-and- 
thought  and  at  the  same  time,  a  more  powerful 
one,  and  one  that  operates  on  a  more  efficient  plan. 
This  sense-and-thought  of  the  Kosmos  is  the  prin- 
ciple that  causes  Kosmos  to  evolve  in  its  own  way, 
and  by  reason  of  its  own  power,  and  quite  inde- 
pendent of  any  direction  whatsoever.  For  this 
cause,  Kosmos  is  alive,  surcharged  with  its  own 
sense,  made  intelligent  by  reason  of  its  own 
thought,  and  animated  by  its  own  life. 

6.  The  single  sense-and-thought  of  Cos- 
mos is  to  make  all  things,  and  make  them 
back  into  itself  again,  as  Organ  of  the  Will 
of  God,  so  organized  that  it,  receiving  all 
the  seeds  into  itself  from  God,  and  keeping 
them  within  itself,  may  make  all  manifest, 
and  [then]  dissolving  them,  make  them  all 
new  again ;  and  thus,  like  a  Good  Gardener 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


115 


of  Life,  things  that  have  been  dissolved,  it 
taketh  to  itself,  and  giveth  them  renewal 
once  again. 

There  is  no  thing  to  which  it  gives  not 
life ;  but  taking  all  unto  itself  it  makes  them 
live,  and  is  at  the  same  time  the  Place  of 
Life  and  its  Creator. 

Kosmos  is  Organ  of  the  Will  of  God.  It  is  the 
vast  space  and  substance  into  which  the  Will  of 
God,  that  is,  the  Dynamic  Energy  of  the  Ultimate 
Deity  enters,  and  moves  therein.  All  the  opera- 
tions of  the  Will  of  God  are  through  the  medium 
of  this  Kosmic  Substance,  which  therefore  becomes 
the  Substantial  Organ  through  which  the  Divine 
Will  Force  functions.  This  Kosmos  is  so  organ- 
ized that  all  the  seeds  from  God,  that  is  all  the 
Divine  Ideas  and  the  Monads  engendered  by  them 
in  the  Matrix  of  Ku,  are  driven  forth  into  Kosmos 
and  are  there  deposited.  They  are  all  received 
into  Kosmos,  after  the  manner  of  seeds  being  de- 
posited in  the  earth  in  planting.  They  are  retained 
there  by  Kosmos.  The  single  sense-and-thought  of 
Kosmos  is  to  receive  these  seeds  from  God,  which 
it  does  by  reason  of  its  negative  contact  with  God. 
These  seeds  of  God,  when  deposited  in  .Kosmos, 
cause  it  to  conceive  after  their  likeness,  so  that  for 
every  seed  coming  from.  God,  there  is  something 
corresponding  to  it,  conceived  in  Kosmos.  In  this 
way  it  is  the  sense-and-thought  of  Kosmos  to  make 
all  things.  It  also  makes  all  things  back  into  itself 
again,  for  nothing  made  by  Kosmos  is  of  perma- 
ment  form,  seeing  that  all  its  making  is  with  refer- 
ence to  itself.  Ai  the  same  time  the  tendency 
engendered  by  the  seed  of  God  is  permanent,  and 
hence  this  process  is  repeated  unto  infinity,  and 
this  is  the  true  basis  of  the  Law  of  Karma.  It 


116 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


makes  all  things  manifest,  and  then,  when  they 
have  become  completely  manifested,  they  are  dis- 
solved into  Kosmos  once  more,  and  are  again  made 
new  again.  Thus  we  have  the  perpetual  reincar- 
nation of  every  thing  that  is  ever  manifested  in 
Kosmos.  It  is  through  the  endless  sequence  of 
manifestations  in  form,  and  dissolutions  of  form 
that  the  life  contained  in  the  form  may  manifest 
yet  again,  that  the  things  made  in  Kosmos  are 
going  through  an  endless  sequence  of  improve- 
ment. Thus  as  the  Gardener  of  Life,  all  things 
that  have  been  dissolved,  are  taken  to  Kosmos  and 
in  the  course  of  time  made  new  again.  Kosmos  is 
then,  at  once  the  Garden  and  the  Gardener  of  Life 
in  all  of  its  manifold  forms.  This  direction  of 
this  Process  is  the  true  nature  of  Kosmic  Sense  and 
Kosmic  Thought  working  as  one  process.  Kosmic 
Sense  draws  all  the  seeds  of  God  into  itself,  and 
likewise,  draws  jnto  itself  all  things  manifested, 
dissolving  them  into  its  own  substance.  Kosmic 
Thought  directs  the  manifestation  of  all  the  seeds 
of  God,  and  likewise  the  renewal  again  of  all 
things  dissolved.  This  is  the  single  sense-and- 
thought  of  Kosmos. 

There  is  no  thing  to  which  it  gives  not 
life,  but  taking  all  unto  itself  it  makes  them 
live,  and  is  at  the  same  time  the  Place  of  Life 
and  its  Creator. 

All  living  things  derive  their  life  from  Kosmos, 
there  is  no  life  from  any  other  source.  It  takes 
every  thing  unto  itself,  and  taking  them  unto  itself, 
it  gives  them  life  and  makes  them  live.  Death 
merely  means  that  a  thing  which  has  exhausted  its 
life  force,  is  indrawn  into  Kosmos  that  it  may  be 
given  another  lease  of  life.  It  is  at  the  same  time 
the  Place  of  Life  and  its  Creator.  It  is  the  Place 
of  Life  because  it  is  the  space  in  which  all  life 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


117 


is  made  manifest^  and  in  which  all  things  are  given 
their  life.  All  the  seeds  of  life  are  deposited  in 
this  space,  and  there  are  given  the  forms  through 
which  they  may  manifest  their  life.  AH  forms  are 
indrawn  into  it,  that  they  may  again  be  made  to 
live.  It  is  likewise  the  Creator  of  Life,  because 
it  is  through  the  operation  of  Kosmos  under  the 
inspiration  of  the  power  of  Kosmic  Thought  that 
Life  is  difYerentiated  into  its  diverse  aspects  and 
manifestations.  All  life,  that  is  all  individual  fife 
is  Created  in  Kosmos,  and  by  Kosmos,  and  it  is 
there  that  all  life  is  made  manifest.  It  is  there- 
fore the  source  and  the  manifestation  of  Life. 
Kosmos  is  able  to  do  this,  because  all  seeds  that 
are  drawn  into  it,  are  made  through  it  to  conceive 
form,  and  all  forms  are  being  indrawn  into  it  and 
there  renewed.  This  is  through  the  dual  operation 
of  the  processes  of  creation  and  dissolution,  and 
these  two  are  made  to  act  as  one  harmonious  oper- 
ation. But  remember  this,  its  creation  is  through 
conception.  When  you  have  mastered  this  secret, 
that  is,  the  secret  of  Kosmos,  you  have  mastered 
the  secret  of  the  Great  Work.  The  mystery  is  that 
of  conception  working  in  conjunction  with  disso- 
lution, joined  with  the  ability  to  draw  within  all 
that  is  to  be  either  conceived  or  dissolved.  Kosmos 
is  the  great  Alchemist,  and  when  any  one  has 
mastered  her  secret  he  has  himself  mastered  the 
secret  of  transmutation.  When  this  has  been 
mastered,  the  practical  work  of  Alchemy  is  mere 
woman's  work  and  boy's  play. 


LESSON  IX 


The  Function  of  the  Cosmos 

7.  Now  bodies  matter  [-made]  are  in 
diversity.  Some  are  of  the  earth,  of  water 
some,  some  are  of  air,  and  some  of  fire. 

But  they  are  all  composed,  some  are  more 
[composite],  and  some  are  simpler.  The 
heavier  ones  are  more  [composed],  the 
lighter  less  so. 

It  is  the  speed  of  Cosmos'  Course  that 
works  the  manifoldness  of  the  kinds  of 
births.  For  being  a  most  swift  Breath,  it 
doth  bestow  their  qualities  on  bodies  to- 
gether with  the  One  Pleroma — that  of  Life. 

Now  bodies  matter  [-made]  are  in  divers- 
ity. Some  are  of  the  earth,  of  water  some, 
some  are  of  air,  and  some  of  fire. 

All  bodies  made  from  matter  may  be  divided 
into  four  classes.  They  are  either  formed  of  earth, 
of  water,  of  air,  or  of  fire.  Thus  we  have  the  four 
groups  of  bodies,  earthy,  watery,  airy,  and  fiery 
bodies.  This  may  be  taken  as  being  true  in  three 
different  senses.  In  the  first  place  we  have  the 
literal  application  of  the  classification.  At  the 
same  time  there  is  the  sense  in  which  these  terms 
are  used  with  reference  to  the  four  elemental  gases, 
or,  rather  to  the  four  ethers,  that  stand  back  of 
those  gases  and  manifest  through  them.  Then  there 
is  the  symbolic  sense,  in  which  the  four  elements 
are  used  with  reference  to  their  corresponding 
principles  in  nature.  However,  in  the  main,  fire 
stands  for  the  Hot  Principle,  air  for  the  Dry  Prin- 

119 


120 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


ciple,  Water  for  the  Moist  Nature,  and  earth  for 
the  Cold  Nature,  no  matter  in  what  Principle  of 
nature  they  may  be  found.  All  matter  manifests 
under  those  four  classifications,  and  all  bodies 
made  from  matter  are  to  be  grouped  accordingly, 
as  being  fiery,  or  hot,  airy,  or  dry,  watery,  or  moist, 
and  earthy,  or  cold. 

But  they  are  all  composed ;  some  are  more 
[composite],  and  some  are  simpler.  The 
heavier  ones  are  more  [composed],  the 
lighter  less  so. 

However,  w^e  must  not  make  the  mistake  of 
assuming  that  there  are  simple  bodies,  that  is, 
bodies  formed  of  a  single  element.  All  bodies  are 
composed  of  two  or  more  elements.  Whichever 
element  is  in  the  major  position  in  the  degree  of 
composition  will  determine  the  element  to  which 
the  body  belongs.  There  are  in  the  composition 
of  these  bodies  all  possible  degrees  of  composition, 
from  the  most  composite  to  the  simplest.  The 
weight  of  a  body  depends  upon  the  degree  of  its 
composition,  the  more  it  is  composed  of  the  dif- 
ferent elements,  the  heavier  it  becomes,  while  the 
greater  the  degree  of  preponderance  of  a  single 
element  in  its  composition,  the  lighter  it  will  be. 
This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  as  the  elements  are 
brought  into  a  closer  degree  of  equilibrium  in  its 
composition,  there  mutual  attraction  is  increased, 
so  that  the  degree  of  chemical  affinity  is  relatively 
increased,  and  in  this  way  is  there  an  increase  in 
the  attraction  which  the  earth  has  upon  such  a 
body.  Thus  it  is  that  the  weight  of  all  bodies  is 
increased  in  proportion  to  the  degree  of  their  com- 
position. It  takes  the  union  of  the  elements  to 
form  any  material  body,  no  matter  how  small. 
Bodies  are  formed  by  reason  of  the  combination 
of  the  four  elements.  Yet  the  preponderating  ele- 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


121 


ment  determines  the  nature  of  the  body,  that  is  the 
element  which  gives  to  it  its  nature.  Thus  we  are 
able  to  see  how  all  bodies  are  formed.  The  elements 
of  chemistry  are  all  composed  of  these  four  ele- 
ments of  Alchemy  and  derive  their  nature  from 
the  proportion  in  which  the  four  elements  unite 
in  their  composition.  The  Molecule  is  in  reality 
a  material  body  composed  of  the  four  elements  in 
diverse  proportions,  and  the  same  is  true  of  the 
Atoms  of  Chemistry.  Each  one,  which  is  in  the 
nature  of  the  unit  of  the  particular  element  under 
consideration,  is  a  material  body  composed  of  the 
four  elements.  The  proportion  in  which  these  ele- 
ments are  united  in  its  composition,  determines  the 
chemical  element  to  which  it  will  belong.  We  do 
not  here  refer  to  the  atoms  of  the  four  elementaries, 
Oxygen,  Hydrogen,  Nitrogen  and  Carbon,  but  to 
the  eighty-six  elements  of  chemistry.  Now,  when 
we  bear  in  mind  that  all  the  elements  of  chemistry 
are  composed  of  atoms,  each  of  which  is  composed 
of  the  atoms  of  the  four  elements  of  Alchemy, 
united  in  a  definite  proportion,  and  this  in  accord- 
ance with  a  perfect  mathematical  scale,  we  see  the 
key  to  the  transmutation  of  these  elements  the  one 
into  the  other.  All  that  is  necessary  is  to  break  up 
this  composition,  restoring  the  chemical  element, 
back  into  the  four  elements  of  Alchemy,  and  break- 
ing up  this  order  of  composition,  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  change  the  mathematical  proportion  of  these 
four  elements,  until  it  becomes  identical  with  that 
of  the  element  to  which  you  wish  to  change  it. 
Then  when  you  have  arranged  the  proportion 
exactly  right,  compose  your  chemical  atom  in  this 
way  and  you  have  the  chemical  element  which  you 
desire.  Unite  these  atoms  into  molecules,  and  you 
have  the  physical  element  which  you  desire.  That 
is  the  entire  Science  and  Art  of  Practical  Alchemy. 
There  is  nothing  to  prevent  any  competent  Elec- 
tro-chemist who  has  an  understanding  of  the  tech- 


122 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


nical  side  of  Analytical  Chemistry  from  trans- 
muting one  element  into  another.  We  have 
indicated  every  problem  that  is  at  all  involved  in 
the  undertaking. 

It  is  the  speed  of  Cosmos'  Course  that 
works  the  manifoldness  of  the  kinds  of 
births.  For  being  a  most  swift  Breath,  it  doth 
bestow  their  qualities  on  bodies  together 
with  the  One  Pleroma — that  of  Life. 

The  Course  of  Kosmos  is  in  the  nature  of  a  most 
swift  Breath,  It  is  a  force  following  an  inbreath- 
ing and  an  outbreathing  movement;  that  is,  we 
have  the  alteration  of  a  Centripetal  and  a  Centri- 
fugal force,  and  this  in  perpetuity  of  action.  This 
movement,  not  only  characterizes,  and  gives  its 
nature  to  the  one  Life,  as  a  simple  principle,  but 
it  also  causes  an  infinite  differentiation  in  the 
rapidity  of  movement  in  the  diverse  portion  of  the 
four  elements.  In  this  way  are  the  diverse  qual- 
ities engendered.  Thus  are  bodies  organized  in 
which  are  being  manifested  all  of  these  diverse 
qualities.  In  this  way  are  diverse  bodies  born,  in 
which  all  the  diverse  qualities  engendered  by  the 
course  of  Kosmic  movement,  may  become  incar- 
nate. The  One  Life  which  is  the  Pleroma  of  all 
the  manifestations  of  Kosmos,  being  engendered 
and  made  what  it  is  by  the  movements  of  the  Kos- 
mic Breath,  manifests  itself  through  the  medium 
of  all  the  diverse  bodies  engendered  by  the  swift- 
ness of  the  Kosmic  Breath.  In  this  way,  are  all 
bodies  made  to  live,  by  reason  of  the  Life  mani- 
festing through  them.  Thus  in  Kosmic  motion 
have  we  the  origin  of  all  modes  as  well  as  of  Life, 
and  livingness. 

8.  God,  then,  is  Sire  of  Cosmos ;  Cosmos, 
of  [all]  in  Cosmos.  And  Cosmos  is  God's 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


123 


Son ;  but  things  in  Cosmos  are  by  Cosmos. 

And  properly  hath  it  been  called  Cosmos 
[Order] ;  for  that  it  orders  all  with  their 
diversity  of  birth,  with  its  not  leaving  aught 
without  its  life,  with  its  unweariedness  of 
activity,  the  speed  of  its  necessity,  the  com- 
position of  its  elements,  and  order  of  its 
ceatures. 

The  same,  then,  of  necessity  and  propriety 
should  have  the  name  of  Order. 

The  sense-and-thought,  then,  of  all  lives 
doth  come  into  them  from  without,  in- 
breathed by  what  contains  [them  all] ; 
whereas  Cosmos  receives  them  once  for  all 
together  with  its  coming  into  being,  and 
keeps  them  as  a  gift  from  God. 

God,  then,  is  Sire  of  Cosmos ;  Cosmos,  of 
[all]  in  Cosmos.  And  Cosmos  is  God's  Son ; 
but  things  in  Cosmos  are  by  Cosmos. 

God  is  the  Sire  and  source  of  Kosmos,  while  all 
the  things  in  Cosmos  are  the  products  of  Kosmos. 
It  would  therefore  be  wrong  to  say  that  God  is  the 
direct  creator  of  anything  else  save  Kosmos. 
Kosmos  is  the  manifestation  of  God,  while  all 
things  in  Kosmos  are  engendered  by  reason  of  the 
life  of  Kosmos,  and  hence  their  being  is  derived 
from  Kosmos,  and  they  continue  to  be  as  a  result 
of  the  action  of  Kosmos.  They  are  not  of  divine 
origin  then,  but  of  kosmic  origin.  This  distinction 
must  at  all  times  be  borne  in  mind,  otherwise  our 
thinking  w^ill  become  confused.  Kosmos  is  the 
womb,  projected  forth  from  God,  into  which  all 
the  kosmic  seed  are  deposited  and  in  this  way  is 
the  kosmic  womb  fecundated  and,  as  a  result  it 


124 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


gives  birth  to  all  the  things  in  Kosmos.  Kosmos 
is,  therefore,  in  the  nature  of  a  self-fecundating 
womb,  which  of  its  own  self,  fecundates  its  own 
self,  and  out  of  itself  gives  birth  to  all  things.  It 
is  in  the  highest  sense  the  Vase  of  Art,  and  the 
fecund  womb  of  existence. 

And  properly  hath  it  been  called  Cosmos 
[Order] ;  for  that  it  orders  all  with  their 
diversity  of  birth,  with  its  not  leaving  aught 
without  its  life,  with  the  unweariedness  of 
its  activity,  the  speed  of  its  necessity,  the 
composition  of  its  elements,  and  order  of  its 
creatures. 

Kosmos  is  in  the  nature  of  a  vast  expanse  of 
energy  and  substance,  every  part  of  its  space  being 
equally  occupied  by  both  energy  and  substance. 
To  be  a  little  more  explicit  we  might  say  that  it 
is  a  vast  space,  completely  filled  with  substance, 
and  this  substance  being  completely  permeated 
by  dynamic  energy.  The  unweariedness  of  this 
activity  keeps  every  particle  of  this  kosmic  sub- 
stance in  a  state  of  perpetual  motion,  thus  tending 
to  engender  form.  This  activity  engenders  a  tre- 
mendous rate  of  speed,  which,  owing  to  its  intense 
rapidity,  manifests  a  state  of  necessity,  which 
governs  all  the  other  manifestations  of  Kosmos. 
All  its  actions  must  conform  to  this  necessity.  This 
operation  of  its  necessity  results  in  the  composition 
of  all  the  kosmic  elements.  A  composition,  the 
direct  result  of  the  course  of  kosmic  necessity.  This 
course  of  kosmic  necessity,  acting  upon  the  kosmic 
elements,  organizes  out  of  them,  the  diverse  forms, 
and  in  this  way  does  it  order  forth  the  diversity 
of  births  of  all  things  in  Kosmos.  It  also  infuses 
the  proper  quality  of  life  in  each  thing  born,  and 
orders  all  of  its  creatures  in  the  true  course  of 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


125 


evolution  through  which  they  are  destined  to  pass 
in  the  manifestation  of  their  life.  For  these  reasons 
is  this  realm  of  action,  formation,  vitalization, 
composition,  necessity,  and  ordering,  termed  Kos- 
mos,  or  Order,  for  it  is  the  ordering  sphere  of  all 
things,  the-that-which  gives  order  in  all  things, 
and  having  no  other  source  of  Order  apart  from 
itself. 

The  same,  then,  of  necessity  and  of  pro- 
priety should  have  the  name  of  Order. 

Because  it  is  the  action  of  Kosmos  that  orders 
forth  all  things,  and  assigns  to  them,  the  order  in 
which  they  are  made  to  manifest,  it  is  both  neces- 
sary and  proper  that  we  should  give  it  the  name 
of  Order,  that  which  is  the  cause  of  the  order  in 
which  every  thing  manifests,  there  being  no  ele- 
ment of  ordering  which  is  not  in  it,  must  of 
necessity  be  the  true  foundation  of  Order,  and 
hence  is  properly  called  Order.  In  other  words, 
it  is  the  principle  of  Order,  and  hence  is  termed 
Order  in  the  sense  of  its  being  the  essence  of  Order, 
or  Order  as  a  Universal  Principle. 

The  sense-and-thought,  then,  of  all  lives 
doth  come  into  them  from  without,  in- 
breathed by  what  contains  [them  all] ; 
whereas  Cosmos  receives  them  once  for  all 
together  with  its  coming  into  being,  and 
keeps  them  as  a  gift  from  God. 

Sense-and-thought  are  inherent  in  no  living 
thing.  In  all  living  things  sense-and-thought  comes 
into  them  from  without.  It  is  not  in  any  sense  of 
the  word  a  product  of  any  living  thing,  but  ema- 
nates from  without  them  all.  As  it  is  not  in  any 
living  thing,  it  must  be  inbreathed  into  them  by 


126 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


some  force  which  is  not  a  thing,  and  this  will  have 
to  be  a  principle  containing  within  itself  all  living 
things.  This  can  be  nothing  other  than  the  Kosmos 
which  we  have  investigated  above.  Hence  it  fol- 
lows that  both  sense  and  thought  are  inherently  and 
universally  present  in  Kosmos.  In  a  word,  in  addi- 
tion to  forming  the  body,  and  infusing  it  with  life 
so  as  to  make  it  live,  Kosmos  also  breathes  into  it 
both  sense  and  thought,  which  makes  it  instinctive 
and  intelligent.  This  is  all  the  work  of  Kosmos. 
It  will  be  perfectly  correct  if  we  say  that  we  live 
in  Kosmos  at  all  times,  completely  immersed  in  it, 
and  completely  bathed  in  the  Kosmic  sea.  We  are 
breathing  in,  life,  sense,  and  thought  from  Kosmos 
as  well  as  air  from  the  Atmosphere.  But  more 
properly  will  it  be  to  say  that  these  are  being 
breathed  into  us  by  Kosmos,  for  we  are  the  Nega- 
tive side  and  not  the  Positive  side  of  this  relation- 
ship. Kosmos,  in  its  coming  into  being,  receives 
sense-and-thought  as  an  integral  part  of  its  being. 
They  remain  inseparably  united  with  its  being, 
for  were  it  not  for  Kosmic  Sense  and  Kosmic 
Thought,  Kosmos  would  not  be  Kosmos.  This  will 
at  once  appear,  when  we  bear  in  mind  that  the 
nature  of  Kosmos  is  the  Ultimate  Order.  Now, 
this  Order  is  maintained  through  the  operation  of 
sense-and-thought,  and  hence,  Kosmos  depends 
upon  the  perpetual  presence  of  this  kosmic  sense- 
and-thought,  Man  senses  that  which  already  is, 
and  through  his  sensing,  he  comes  in  contact  with 
it,  but  Kosmos  senses  that  which  does  not  exist, 
and  through  such  sensing  of  the  non-existent,  it  is 
brought  into  existence  through  the  action  of  the 
kosmic  sense.  The  action  of  sense-and-thought  are 
exactly  the  reverse  in  the  case  of  man,  and  of  Kos- 
mos. Man  senses  that  which  is  exterior  to  himself 
and  this  sensing  of  the  object  causes  him  to  think 
of  it,  so  that  thought  springs  out  of  his  sensing.  In 
the  case  of  Kosmos,  however,  thought  precedes 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


127 


sense.  Through  sense,  the  thing  thought  of  is 
brought  into  existence.  Through  Kosmic  sense,  the 
kosmic  thoughts  are  made  sensible,  and  in  this  way 
they  begin  to  exist.  Kosmic  sense  is  therefore  the 
kosmic  faculty  of  rendering  the  subjective  thought 
side  of  Kosmos,  objective.  When  man  has  trans- 
formed this  human  sense  into  kosmic  sense,  he  has 
acquired  the  power  of  making  his  subjective 
thought  objective,  that  is  of  objectifying  his 
thought  images,  and  thus  of  creating  that  which 
he  thinks  in  his  mind.  This  is  the  true  secret  of 
creation.  When  one  has  mastered  this  secret  he  is 
the  master  of  the  Art  of  Creation,  and  thus  has  he 
attained  creative  thought  through  the  mastering 
of  kosmic  sense.  Kosmic  sense-and-thought  are  the 
reflection  in  kosmic  substance  of  the  sense-and- 
thought  of  God.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  sense- 
and-thought  of  Kosmos  is  a  gift  from  God,  it  is 
the  sense-and-thought  of  God  m^ifesting  through 
Kosmic  Substance,  The  sense-and-thought  of  man 
are  in  turn,  the  manifestation  of  the  kosmic  sense- 
and-thought  through  the  medium  of  the  human 
organism.  For  this  reason  we  might  truly  sa}^,  the 
sense-and-thought  of  man  is  a  gift  from  Kosmos. 
It  is  this  connection  which  enables  man  to  rise 
from  the  status  of  the  human  man  to  that  of  the 
kosmic  man,  through  the  incarnation  in  himself, 
of  kosmic  sense  and  kosmic  thought.  Such  trans- 
position of  himself  and  of  his  powxrs  to  the  kosmic 
status  is  the  true  secret  as  well  as  the  true  goal  of 
the  Alchemist,  and  this  is  the  Ultama  thule  of  the 
Hermetic  Art.  This  is  the  great  distinction 
between  the  Natural  and  the  Artistic  Man.  The 
great  problem  is  to  open  up  oneself  to  the  activities 
of  the  Kosmos,  and  permit  them  a  freer  degree  of 
manifestation  through  our  diverse  principles.  To 
ensoul  as  far  as  we  are  able,  Kosmos,  is  the 
Magnum  Opus  in  all  of  its  completeness. 


LESSON  X 


The  Sense-and-Thought  of  God 

9.  But  God  is  not,  as  some  suppose, 
beyond  the  reach  of  sense-and-thought.  It 
is  through  superstition  men  thus  impiously 
speak. 

For  all  the  things  that  are,  Asclepius,  all 
are  in  God,  are  brought  by  God  to  be,  and 
do  depend  on  Him — both  things  that  act 
through  bodies,  and  things  that  through 
soul-substance  make  [other  things]  to  move, 
and  things  that  make  things  live  by  means  of 
spirit,  and  things  that  take  unto  themselves 
the  things  that  are  worn  out. 

And  rightly  so ;  nay,  I  would  rather  say, 
He  doth  not  have  these  things ;  but  I  speak 
forth  the  truth.  He  is  them  all  Himself.  He 
doth  not  get  them  from  without,  but  gives 
them  out  [from  Himself]. 

This  is  God's  sense-and-thought,  even  to 
move  all  things.  And  never  time  shall  be 
when  e'en  a  whit  of  things  that  are  shall 
cease ;  and  when  I  say  ''a  whit  of  things  that 
are,"  I  mean  a  whit  of  God.  For  things  that 
are,  God  hath;  nor  aught  [is  there]  without 
Him,  nor  [is]  He  without  aught. 

But  God  is  not,  as  some  suppose,  beyond 
the  reach  of  sense-and-thought.  It  is  through 
superstition  men  thus  impiously  speak. 

129 


130 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


Those  who  assume  that  God  is  absolutely 
transcendent  and  cannot  be  approached,  are  the 
ignorant  and  the  superstitious.  The  whole  theory 
of  the  transcendence  of  God  is  entirely  due  to  a 
misunderstanding  of  the  nature  of  God.  The  prin- 
ciple reason  for  such  contention  is  that  it  renders 
it  impossible  for  man  to  know  God  and  His  Will, 
and  this  renders  a  Revelation  of  God  necessary. 
Thus  we  have  the  belief  that  we  can  only  reach  a 
knowledge  of  God  through  revelation,  and  of 
course  this  is  a  very  convenient  doctrine  for  the 
clergy,  as  it  makes  them  the  sole  custodians  of  the 
Will  of  God.  I  might  say  that  this  idea  of  a 
transcendent  God,  the  knowledge  of  Whom  comes 
only  by  revelation,  is  the  deliberate  invention  of 
the  priesthood,  and  it  is  one  of  the  most  useful  of 
all  inventions,  for  it  is  of  course  at  all  times  essen- 
tial that  we  should  befuddle  the  cheap  organisms, 
and  in  this  way  it  will  be  the  easier  f ot  us  to  exploit 
them.  It  is  impious  for  anyone  to  say  that  God 
cannot  be  reached  through  sense-and-thought.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  sense-and-thought  of  man  is 
quite  capable  of  at-oneing  itself  with  God,  so  that 
simply  through  his  sense-and-thought  man  may 
know  God  definitely  and  with  complete  satisfac- 
tion. This  of  course  is  not  the  privilege  of  cheap 
organisms,  only  gentlemen  have  any  business  to 
know  God! 

For  all  the  things  that  are,  Asclepius,  all 
are  in  God,  are  brought  by  God  to  be,  and 
do  depend  on  Him — both  things  that  act 
through  bodies,  and  things  that  through 
soul-substance  make  [other  things]  to  move, 
and  things  that  make  things  live  by  means  of 
spirit,  and  things  that  take  unto  themselves 
the  things  that  are  worn  out. 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


131 


Nothing  ever  comes  into  being  unless  it  was 
previously  in  God.  That  is,  things  come  into 
existence  because  they  have  previously  subsisted 
in  God.  Not  only  is  this  true,  but  they  continue 
to  subsist  in  Him  after  they  have  been  born  into 
existence.  In  fact,  the  only  cause  for  the  existence 
of  anything  is  the  abiding  idea  of  it  in  God.  They 
are  in  God,  they  are  brought  by  Him  into  being, 
and  their  continued  existence  depends  upon  Him. 
They  can  exist  only  so  long  as  He  is  conscious  of 
them  as  being  in  Him.  This  will  mean  that  they 
can  exist  only  because  they  subsist  in  His  con- 
sciousness. They  have  no  other  substratum  than 
God.  He  does  not  create  them,  He  externalizes 
them  from  the  depths  of  Himself  alone.  In  a 
word,  ail  things  are  generated  in  Ku,  are  born 
forth  out  of  Ku,  and  at  the  same  time  ever  continue 
to  abide  in  Ku.  This  is  true  of  everything  that 
lives  and  acts  through  the  instrumentality  of  a 
body,  that  is,  all  embodied  life.  In  a  word,  every 
single  body  that  exists,  subsists  in  God,  has  been 
born  forth  out  of  God,  and  depends  for  its  con- 
tinued existence  upon  the  continued  presence  in 
God  of  its  arche-typal  idea.  But  this  is  not  only 
true  of  all  embodied  things,  but  it  is  true  as  well 
of  those  motive  forces  that  manifest  through  soul- 
substance  and  in  this  way  move  other  things.  In 
a  word,  every  form  of  dynamic  energy  subsists  in 
God,  has  been  emanated  from  God  and  depends 
for  its  continued  activity  upon  the  fact  that  it  is 
still  in  God.  Also,  all  those  things  that  are  the 
causes  of  the  infusing  of  spirit  into  other  things, 
and  in  this  way  make  them  to  live,  are  likewise  in 
God,  they  have  been  manifested  out  from  God,  and 
at  the  same  time  they  continue  to  subsist  in  God. 
Likewise,  those  things  that  devour  or  absorb  the 
things  that  have  lived  out  their  period  of  life,  and 
are  hence  worn  out,  are  also  subsistent  in  God,  are 
existent  from  God  and  continue  to  depend  upon 


132 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


God  for  their  being.  In  a  word,  every  single  thing 
in  the  Kosmos,  in  the  Universe,  in  the  earth,  and 
everywhere  else,  has  subsisted  in  God,  it  has  been 
born  forth  from  God  into  existence,  and  it  con- 
tinues to  abide  in  God  as  to  its  ideal  form.  There- 
fore, we  see  that  God  is  all-in-all.  That  all  things 
are  but  aspects  of  His  being,  made  active,  and  in 
this  way  made  manifest.  Hence  there  is  nothing 
apart  from  Him.  Not  only  have  all  things  been 
brought  into  being  through  the  act  of  God,  but 
likewise,  they  continue  to  exist  only  because  of  the 
continual  sustenance  of  God  to  them,  they  are  His 
perpetual  manifestations. 

And  rightly  so;  nay,  I  would  rather  say, 
He  doth  not  have  these  things ;  but  I  speak 
forth  the  truth.  He  is  them  all  Himself.  He 
doth  not  get  them  from  without,  but  gives 
them  out  [from  Him]. 

God  has  not  created  these  things.  They  are  not 
His  creatures,  neither  does  He  have  them  as 
possessions.  In  no  sense  are  they  to  be  separated 
from  Him.  They  are  not  to  be  thought  of  as  His 
works,  neither  should  we  in  truth  speak  of  them 
as  emanations  from  Him.  In  reality,  God  is  all 
these  things  Himself.  He  does  not  get  these  things 
from  some  other  source.  They  are  not  derived  from 
another,  neither  do  they  come  from  outside  of  God. 
On  the  other  hand,  God  gives  them  all  out  from 
Himself.  In  a  word,  all  things  are  born  forth 
from  God.  Now,  if  they  are  born  of  Him,  they 
must  have  b^en  formed  previously  to  the  time  of 
such  birth,  and  if  they  are  born  of  God,  they  can 
be  formed  of  nothing  apart  from  Him,  hence  they 
must  have  been  formed  in  God.  If  they  are  formed 
in  Him,  they  can  be  formed  of  nothing  which  is 
not  present  in  Him  at  a  time  previous  to  such 
forming,  hence,  they  will  of  necessity  have  to  be 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


133 


formed  of  the  substance  of  God  Himself.  In  a 
word,  they  will  have  to  be  formed  of  Ku  and  in 
Ku.  As  all  the  divine  formations  take  place  in  Ku 
and  as  a  result  of  thought,  it  will  follow  that  God 
must  first  think  of  the  thing  to  be  formed;  that  is, 
he  must  think  the  thought  corresponding  to  the 
thing  that  is  going  to  be  formed,  for,  bear  in  mind 
God  does  not  intend  to  form  this  or  that,  His 
thought,  on  the  contrary,  engenders  that  which 
corresponds  to  it.  The  Divine  Thought  impreg- 
nates Ku,  and  as  a  result  that  which  corresponds 
to  the  thought  is  formed  in  the  womb  of  Ku.  From 
this  it  will  follow  that  it  must  be  formed  of  the 
substance  of  Ku  and  energized  by  Her  energy, 
thus  it  will  be  quite  divine.  All  things  are  there- 
fore the  thoughts  of  God,  manifesting  through  the 
substance  and  energy  of  God.  There  is  no  other 
thought,  no  other  substance,  and  no  other  energy 
save  that  of  God,  hence,  all  things  are  of  this 
thought,  substance  and  energy  of  God  and  have 
nothing  else,  hence,  they  are  all  of  them,  God. 
Therefore,  God  is  each  and  every  thing  of  all 
things  that  are.  He  is  not  only  all  things,  but  He 
is  each  particular  thing.  To  be  a  little  more 
explicit,  no  thing  has  any  objective  existence.  They 
all  have  an  existence  purely  subjective,  subsisting 
in  the  consciousness  of  God,  but  do  not  exist  as 
objects.  It  is  illusion  that  causes  us  to  see  them 
as  objective;  they  are  in  fact  thoughts  of  God, 
existing  merely  as  states  of  His  sense.  In  no  other 
sense  do  they  exist.  Hence,  they  are  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  God  Himself. 

This  is  God's  sense-and-thought,  ever  to 
move  all  things.  And  never  time  shall  be 
when  e'en  a  whit  of  things  that  are  shall 
cease;  and  when  I  say  ''a  whit  of  things  that 
are/'  I  mean  a  whit  of  God.  For  things  that 


134 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


are,  God  hath,  nor  aught  [is  there]  without 
Him,  nor  [is]  He  without  aught. 

The  sense-and-thought  of  God  is  the  power  that 
moves  all  things.   They  are  engendered  by  His 
thought,  and  after  they  have  been  engendered,  that 
thought  abides  in  them,  thus  becoming  their  intel- 
ligence, and  in  this  way,  directing  from  within,  all 
their  movements.  The  sense  of  God  is  that  which 
causes  them  to  have  form,  for  they  are  in  form, 
because  they  are  in  the  sense  of  God,  and  for  no 
other  reason.  Were  they  to  cease  to  be  sensible  to 
Him  they  would  cease  to  be.   Energy  they  have 
because  of  the  sense  of  God,  for  His  energy  is  His 
sense.  Therefore,  all  things  are  brought  into  being 
and  are  made  to  move,  through  the  sense  of  God. 
It  is  in  fact  the  sense  of  God  abiding  in  all  things 
that  causes  them  to  move  by  reason  of  the  move- 
ment which  is  within  them,  this  is  true  because  all 
things  are  ensouled  by  the  sense  of  God.  The  time 
can  never  come  when  a  whit  of  things  that  are  shall 
cease  to  be,  because,  all  such  things  have  merely  a 
subjective  existence  in  the  thought  and  sense  of 
God,  hence  they  can  never  cease  to  be,  so  long  as 
God  is  sensible  of  them.    Until  such  time  as  God 
shall  become  insensible  of  His  own  thought-and- 
sense,  nothing  existing  in  His  thought-and-sense 
can  ever  cease  to  be.    As  His  thought-and-sense 
are  His  Being,  it  follows  that  the  very  being  of 
God  must  change  before  any  thing  can  ever  cease 
to  be,  and  owing  to  the  immutability  of  His 
Essence  this  is  impossible.    All  things  are  there- 
fore so  many  parts  of  God,  and  as  no  part  of  God 
can  be  destroyed,  seeing  that  He  is  not  composed, 
but  is  the  Absolute  Unity,  the  dissolution  of  any 
part  of  Him  would  be  the  extinction  of  His  unity, 
it  follows  that  nothing  that  has  come  into  being, 
can  ever  cease  to  be.    There  is  nothing  without 
God,  hence  nothing  has  existence  save  as  God. 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


135 


This  being  the  case,  God  does  not  subsist,  save  as 
the  totality  of  the  all,  hence  God  cannot  survive 
if  any  single  thing  is  lost.  This  soul-satisfying 
Omni-Theism  solves  all  the  problems  of  existence 
and  subsistence.  We  can  see  that  there  are  no 
things,  but  on  the  contrary,  there  is  the  Absolute 
One  whose  relativity  appears  to  be  diverse. 

10.  These  things  should  seem  to  thee, 
Asclepius,  if  thou  dost  understand  them, 
true ;  but  if  thou  dost  not  understand,  things 
not  to  be  believed. 

To  understand  is  to  believe,  to  not  believe 
is  not  to  understand. 

My  word  (logos)  doth  go  before  [thee] 
to  the  truth.  But  mighty  is  the  mind,  and 
when  it  hath  been  led  by  w^ord  up  to  a  certain 
point,  it  hath  the  power  to  come  before  thee 
to  the  truth. 

And  having  thought  o'er  all  these  things, 
and  found  them  consonant  with  those  which 
have  already  been  translated  by  the  reason, 
it  hath  [e'en]  now  believed,  and  found  its 
rest  in  that  Fair  Faith. 

To  those,  then,  who  by  God  ['s  good  aid] 
do  understand  the  things  that  have  been  said 
[by  us]  above,  they're  credible;  but  unto 
those  who  understand  them  not,  incredible. 

Let  so  much,  then,  suffice  on  thought-and- 
sense. 

These  things  should  seem  to  thee,  Ascle- 
pius, if  thou  dost  understand  them,  true ;  but 
if  thou  dost  not  undrestand,  things  not  to  be 
believed. 


136 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


The  teaching  that  we  have  been  giving  here  on 
the  subject  of  thought-and-sense,  will  at  once 
appear  to  be  the  truth,  if  one  understands  the  true 
meaning  of  what  has  been  said.  If  one  is  able  to 
comprehend  our  interpretation,  he  will  at  once  see 
that  it  could  not  possibly  have  been  any  other  way. 
To  one  who  understands  our  meaning,  the  truth 
of  what  we  have  said  will  be  self-evident.  If  this 
is  not  the  case,  it  will  simply  prove  that  the  unbe- 
liever has  simply  no  comprehension  whatsoever  of 
what  we  are  talking  about.  In  a  word,  it  will  go 
to  show,  that  he  is  not  capable  of  forming  an 
opinion  on  such  subjects,  in  a  word,  it  will  expose 
him  as  a  cheap  organism.  The  beauty  of  the 
Hermetic  position  is  in  the  fact  that  once  it  has 
been  understood,  an  intelligent  person  cannot  pos- 
sibly see  how  it  would  be  possible  for  it  to  be  any 
other  way. 

To  understand  is  to  believe,  to  not  believe 
is  not  to  understand. 

Here  we  have  a  definition  of  belief  that  may 
strike  many  as  being  unusual.  Belief,  is  in  reality 
that  action  of  the  mind  by  which  a  statement  is 
accepted  as  being  true.  There  is  no  connection 
between  true  belief  and  credulity.  It  is  impossible 
for  any  one  to  believe  that  which  he  does  not  un- 
derstand, and  likewise,  it  is  impossible  for  one  to 
avoid  belief  in  that  which  he  understands.  The 
function  of  the  understanding  is  to  trace  out  the 
relationship  between  a  statement  and  the  synthesis 
of  truth  of  which  one  is  conscious.  To  understand 
a  statement  is  therefore,  to  trace  out  the  relation- 
ship which  that  statement  bears  to  the  truth  of 
which  one  is  aware.  When  the  mind  has  indicated 
this  relationship,  and  has  shown  that  there  is  no 
point  at  which  the  relationship  is  not  perfect,  one 
has  understood  the  statement.    Belief  is  that  action 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


of  the  mind,  by  which,  when  a  statement  is  under- 
stood, it  is  registered  as  being  true.  In  a  word, 
that  which  we  believe  we  accept  as  being  real, 
while  up  to  the  point  of  belief,  it  was  merely 
apparent.  It  might  be  true,  or  it  might  not.  How- 
ever, belief  is  the  act  of  mind  by  which  that  which 
is  understood  becomes  certain.  We  are  sure  of 
what  we  believe.  One  never  believes  any  thing  on 
the  testimony  of  another.  The  testimony  of  others 
may  establish  a  presumption  in  favor  of  a  state- 
ment of  fact,  but  it  is  not  sufficient  to  establish  a 
belief.  We  do  not  believe  a  thing  until  the  under- 
standing has  indicated  why  it  is  true.  In  a  word, 
to  believe  is  to  accept  the  connection  between  the 
fact  and  the  Law  of  Nature  that  is  operative  in 
the  establishing  of  that  fact.  We  will  go  a  step 
farther,  it  is  not  at  all  easy  to  believe  any  thing 
that  is  not  true.  Belief  as  we  have  indicated  is 
a  condition  of  mind  resulting  from  an  understand- 
ing of  the  thing  to  be  believed,  and  is  in  all  cases, 
a  condition  subsequent  to  the  understanding  of  the 
proposition.  To  accept  a  statement  on  the  author- 
ity of  another,  is  not  to  believe  it,  but  to  admit  that 
the  other  has  a  mind  superior  to  your  own,  and 
therefore,  what  he  says  must  be  true,  but  you  can 
never  realize  that  it  is  true,  and  that  is  what  you 
have  to  do  if  you  are  to  believe  it.  This  certitude 
of  belief  is  the  result  of  the  understanding  of  the 
statement. 

My  word  (logos)  doth  go  before  [thee] 
to  the  truth.  But  mighty  is  the  mind,  and 
when  it  hath  been  led  by  word  up  to  a  certain 
point,  it  hath  the  power  to  come  before 
[thee]  to  the  truth. 

When  the  truth  is  taught  in  the  form  of  words, 
it  will  give  a  statem.ent  of  the  truth,  which  one 


138 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


cannot  at  the  moment  accept  as  the  truth.  In  other 
words,  one  can  have  stated  to  him  in  the  form  of 
words,  a  truth  which  he  does  not  as  yet  under- 
stand as  sucli.  The  purpose  of  such  teaching  is 
to  set  the  mind  at  work,  and  directing  it  along  a 
certain  line  of  thought,  cause  it,  through  this 
process,  to  formulate  the  concept,  in  terms  of 
thought  ere  we  are  conscious  of  the  fact  that  we 
have  accepted  it  as  being  true.  In  a  word,  man 
never  bel'ieves  a  statement  because  he  wishes  to 
believe  it,  he  believes  it  because  the  belief  is  made 
manifest  in  his  mind.  In  other  words,  we  are  deal- 
ing with  a  form  of  chemical  action,  and  the  act  of 
listening  to  the  teaching  has  the  effect  of  confining 
the  action  of  the  mind  to  the  topic  under  discus- 
sion, with  the  result  that  the  understanding  works 
it  out,  and  the  result  is,  the  germination  in  the 
mind  of  a  definite  belief  in  that  which  has  been 
brought  to  its  attention.  This  is  in  fact  pure 
alchemy.  It  is  also  true  that  we  reach  such  belief 
at  a  time  anterior  to  our  becoming  conscious  of 
the  fact  that  we  have  accepted  it  as  being  true.  We 
must  at  ail  times  bear  in  mind  that  all  mental  oper- 
ations are  in  the  nature  of  achievements  in 
Alchem}^  For  this  reason,  the  purpose  of  instruc- 
tion is  nothing  more  than  the  discipline  of  the 
mind,  to  the  end  that  its  operations  may  be  con- 
fined to  a  certain  line  of  thought,  and  in  this  way 
belief  may  be  born  within  it.  You  can  prove  noth- 
ing to  any  one,  you  can  merely  lead  his  mind  in 
the  right  direction,  so  that  it  may  of  its  own  power, 
create  within  itself  the  belief  of  the  thing  which 
you  wish  to  impress  upon  it. 

And  having  thought  o'er  all  these  things, 
and  found  them  consonant  with  those  which 
have  already  been  translated  by  the  reason, 
it  hath  [e'en  now]  believed,  and  found  its 
rest  in  that  Fair  Faith. 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


139 


The  function  of  the  reason  is  to  translate  all 
things  into  the  form  of  belief.  It  is  closely  con- 
nected with  the  understanding,  and  yet  there  is  a 
distinction.  The  great  work  of  reason  is  to  analyze 
all  statements  and  reducing  them  to  their  most 
ultimate  aspect,  to  detect  errors.  It  is  in  fact  the 
critical  faculty.  By  it  w^e  are  able  to  detect  any 
defects  that  may  be  present  in  its  presentation.  It 
is  in  fact,  the  Dweller  on  the  Threshold  which 
every  statement  must  pass  before  it  can  approach 
the  understanding.  Through  the  exercise  of  the 
reason,  all  statements  of  views,  are  analyzed  and 
are  at  last  reduced  to  such  form  as  will  accommo- 
date them  to  the  body  of  truth.  They  are  then, 
being  translated  into  this  form,  given  to  the  under- 
standing, which  assimulates  them  in  such  way  that 
we  have  an  understanding  of  them,  when  they  take 
the  form  of  belief.  It  is  therefore  the  reason  that 
translates  all  things  into  the  form  of  belief.  When 
all  these  things  which  we  are  here  discussing  have 
been  carefully  thought  over,  and  as  a  result  of  such 
thinking,  have  been  found  to  be  consonant  w^ith 
those  which  have  already  been  translated  by  the 
reason,  in  other  words,  thinking  on  them,  so  that 
the  reason  has  prepared  them  for  assimilation  into 
the  understanding,  so  that  they  may  become  a  part 
of  what  has  been  accepted  as  belief,  the  mind  be- 
lieves in  them.  This  will  simply  mean  that  the 
mind  has  made  of  them  a  portion  of  its  own  belief. 
They  will  have  taken  their  abode  in  the  mind,  so 
that  from  this  time  forth,  all  one's  thinking  will 
be  conditioned  by  these  things.  This  is  an  oper- 
ation of  pure  Alchemy  which  transpires  in  the 
mind.  Words  have  been  transmuted  into  beliefs. 
It  is  thus  that  one  believes  the  Gnosis.  Thus 
through  such  belief  of  the  teaching,  one  takes  his 
rest  in  the  Fair  Faith  of  Gnosis.  The  Fair  Faith 
is  in  no  sense  to  be  confused  with  what  is  com- 


140 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


monly  called  blind  faith.  To  find  rest  in  the  Fair 
Faith  means  that  through  thinking  upon  the 
Gnostic  Teaching,  the  reason  is  to  translate  it  in 
terms  of  one's  individual  understanding,  and  thus 
it  is  to  engender  belief  of  the  Gnosis.  This  belief 
in  the  Gnostic  Teaching  will  so  transform  the 
mind  that  in  all  of  its  future  thinking,  it  will  oper- 
ate in  that  direction  and  in  accordance  with  those 
principles,  and  that  transformed  state  of  mind  is 
Gnosis,  or  it  is  the  Fair  Faith.  This  then  is  not  in 
the  nature  of  a  belief,  but  rather  in  the  nature  of 
a  state  of  mind,  that  will  transform  into  its  like- 
ness all  the  things  that  are  offered  to  the  mind. 
This  is  in  fact  the  Golden  Mind  which  will  trans- 
form into  its  own  Pure  Gold  all  the  baser  thoughts 
that  are  born  within  it.  Gnosis  is  therefore  the 
Philosopher's  Stone,  that  is  to  transform  into 
Gnosis  all  the  thoughts  of  the  mind.  After  one 
has  taken  his  rest  in  this  Fair  Faith,  it  is  utterly 
impossible  for  him  to  ever  err,  for  the  reason  that 
his  Faith  will  make  all  his  thinking  after  its  image. 

To  those,  then,  who  by  God  ['s  good  aid] 
do  understand  the  things  that  have  been  said 
[by  us]  above,  they're  credible;  but  unto 
those  who  understand  them  not,  incredible. 

If  one  has  understood  this  teaching,  it  means  that 
his  reason  has  translated  it  into  terms  of  his  think- 
ing, and  that  his  understanding  has  united  it  with 
his  previous  knowledge,  so  that  it  has  through  the 
action  of  his  mind  become  a  belief,  and  hence  a 
part  of  his  thinking.  This  being  true,  it  will  fol- 
low that  they  are  real  to  him,  being  part  and  parcel 
of  his  mental  organization  and  hence  of  his  think- 
ing. This  being  the  case,  it  is  quite  impossible  for 
him  to  doubt  them  any  longer.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  one  has  not  understood  them,  they  are  no  part  of 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


141 


his  mind,  and  as  he  does  not  think  them,  of  course 
he  cannot  believe  them,  seeing  that  no  such  belief 
has  been  born  within  his  mind.  One  repudiates 
these  things,  simply  because  of  the  fact  that  no  such 
belief  has  been  born  within  the  mind,  and  in  the 
absence  of  such  a  belief,  it  is  futile  for  us  to  expect 
one  to  accept  them.  One  who  accepts  the  Gnosis 
is  merely  one  who  has  consummated  the  Great 
Work  in  his  mind,  while  one  who  has  not  consum- 
mated it  will  of  course  be  unable  to  accept  a  belief 
which  can  only  exist  as  a  result  of  such  consumma- 
tion of  the  Great  Work  in  the  mind.  Faith  in 
Gnosis  is  born  within  the  mind,  and  it  comes  in  no 
other  way.  Unless  this  has  been  born  in  the  mind, 
it  is  useless  to  hope  for  one  to  see  the  truth  in  our 
sublime  teaching.  This  bearing  of  the  Fair  Faith 
in  the  mind  is  the  true  purpose  of  the  Hermetic 
Art.  All  Hermetic  Disciplines  lead  unto  this  end. 

Let  so  much,  then,  suffice  on  thought-and- 
sense. 

What  we  have  said  in  the  above  instructions  will 
clearly  indicate  the  exact  nature  of  thought-and- 
sense,  divine,  kosmic  and  human.  Those  who  will 
not  understand  our  interpretation  are  cheap  organ- 
isms that  would  not  understand  were  we  to  write 
ten  thousand  volumes  on  the  subject,  and  to  those 
capable  of  understanding,  wx  have  given  ample 
instruction  for  their  guidance  in  the  working  of 
the  Hermetic  Art  and  the  consummation  of  the 
Great  Work  in  their  own  minds.  This  is  the 
Master  Key  to  the  transmutation  of  the  mind  and 
the  generation  of  thought,  belief  and  Faith.  We 
have  indicated  the  one  and  only  way  in  which  one 
ever  attains  Gnosis.  Remember  this,  you  can  never 
learn  Gnosis,  it  is  useless  to  study  it.  Gnosis  must 
be  born  within  you,  and  it  can  be  born  only  in  the 


142 


THE  HERMETIC  ART 


mind,  and  that  in  the  way  that  we  have  here  indi- 
cated. The  attainment  of  Gnosis  is  the  Magnum 
Opus  of  the  mind. 

With  these  words,  we  close  our  treatise  on  The 
Hermetic  Art.  Those  who  have  understood  us, 
will  have  no  difficulty  in  going  into  the  study  of 
the  Art  of  Alchemy. 


(The  End) 


Below  find  complete  list  of  the  Hermetic  works,  by 
Dr.  A.  S.  Raleigh,  already  published  in  book  form  and 


which  will  be  sent  postpaid  at  prices  listed : 

WOMAN  AND  SUPER-WOMAN  $  1.50 

SHEPHERD  OF  MEN   2.00 

STANZAS  OF  DJYN  (THEOGENESIS) . . . .  2.50 

PHILOSOPHY  HERMETICA    10.00 

SCIENTIFICA  HERMETICA    10.00 

HERMETIC  ART    10.00 


All  the  above  books  are  printed  on  the  same  beauti- 
ful paper  as  the  Hermetic  Art  and  similarly  bound  and 
stamped  in  gold. 

The  books  named  below  will  soon  be  in  book  form 
and  ready  to  market  on  uniform  paper  and  binding  as 


above : 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ALCHEMY  $10.00 

SCIENCE  OF  ALCHEMY   10.00 

SPECULATIVE  ALCHEMY    10.00 


Send  for  large,  handsome  circular,  giving  contents 
fully  outlined  of  each  of  the  above  books.  The  circular 
gives  such  a  complete  analysis  of  each  book  and  contains 
so  much  valuable  information  that  it  will  be  preserved 
by  all  Mystics  and  Occultists.  It  will  be  sent  free  of 
cost. 

The  $10.00  books  are  the  private  lessons  written  by 
Dr.  A.  S.  Raleigh  for  the  Hermetic  Brotherhood. 

In  addition  to  the  above  books  a  few  sets  of  the 
following  lessons  may  be  secured  at  prices  named  below : 

MOTION  AND  NUMBER,  12  Lessons  $10.00 

PSYCHOLOGY,  12  Lessons   10.00 

MAGIC,  12  Lessons   10.00 

PHRENOGARTEN  COURSE,  12  Lessons....  10.00 
META-PHYSICAL  HEALING,  12  Lessons..  10.00 


HERMETIC  PUBLISHING  CO. 

3020  Lake  Park  Avenue 

Chicago,  IlL 


Duke  University  Libraries 


D00331950L 


( 


